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Monte Felis 



Monte Felis 

By Mary Brearley 






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BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1923 


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Copyright , 

By Little, Brown, and Company. 
All rights reserved 
Published September, 1923 


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Printed in the United States of America 

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Monte Felis 














MONTE FELIS 


Chapter I 

O NE afternoon in early October, as the 
light died out of the sky behind the 
chimney-pots, Corisande Heaven ran up 
the steps of her mother’s house in Chelsea, and let 
herself in with her latchkey. In the small hall she 
paused and shouted: 

“Mother!’’ No reply. “Beatrice!” Still no 
answer. 

“Both out,” she commented almost as loudly, her 
shrill young voice in perpetual contradiction to her 
extremely fragile appearance. 

They had evidently been out all afternoon, for on 
the little imitation oak table lay the unclaimed three 
o’clock post. Corisande turned the letters over. 
Four for Mrs. Heaven as well as a note that had 
come by hand. A Parish Magazine and a post 
card for her sister. A fattish envelope bearing a 
foreign stamp and a regimental crest for herself. 

7 


Monte Felis 

She flushed as she opened it, frowned as she ran 
her eye over the first sheet, and then pushed it all 
back into the envelope. 

“I wish I weren't so bad at making up my mind,” 
she sighed. “I wish that he was really rich, or 
... or that some Americans didn’t have such long 
upper lips.” 

She sighed again, and took up the letters ad¬ 
dressed to Mrs. Heaven. One by one she scruti¬ 
nized the envelopes, holding up the thin ones to the 
light, till she came to the note which had come by 
hand. Why on earth was Patch Reval writing to 
her mother? 

Mrs. Reval was her future sister-in-law, or so 
she had thought of her that morning. Now, she 
wasn’t so sure. It was just what she couldn’t make 
up her mind about. 

She twisted the thick envelope in her fingers. It 
had been hastily and only partially stuck down, and 
almost before she quite knew what she was doing, 
one of her fingers had inserted itself under the flap. 
A little further, and it was open, disclosing some 
of the writing inside. “Poor little Corrie,” very 
distinct in the writer’s large dashing hand. 

“Poor little Corrie!” What was threatening 
her? She tore the letter out and opened it. 

8 


Monte Felis 


“Dear Mrs. Heaven,” it ran. “The most dread¬ 
ful news! Those wicked riots and poor darling 
Maurice badly hurt! A bomb, or something ex¬ 
plosive, and they fear he is blind. Isn't it too 
awful? I should have come myself to tell you but 
there are these tiresome rehearsals at all hours, and 
more people than I possibly remember coming to 
lunch. You may imagine how much heart I have 
for any of it. My beautiful Maurice! He was so 
handsome, wasn’t he? And now I fear he will be 
quite hideous. However, one mustn’t let one’s pri¬ 
vate griefs interfere with one’s public obligations. 
How often in these last dreadful years I have had 
to remind myself of that! Fondest love to poor 
little Corrie. Yours v. sincerely, Patricia Reval.” 

Corisande read the letter through twice, the sec¬ 
ond time half audibly as if to impress the sense 
of it on her mind beyond all questioning. A 
frightened, almost hunted, look appeared on her 
face as of a very small animal suddenly aware of 
a trap and only a very narrow margin of escape. 
When she came to the end she sat down rather 
heavily on one of the hall chairs, without looking 
previously to see if it had been dusted. 

Fancy if they'd been married as Maurice had 
wanted when he was home on leave. Where would 

9 


Monte Felis 


she have been now? Alone with a blind man, in a 
tumble-down old house at the back of beyond, on 
next to nothing a year. It wasn’t that she didn’t 
love him—had loved him. He was so adorably 
good-looking, with those melancholy long-lidded 
eyes, that laughed, and said so many things when 
you looked into them. All her friends had been 
wild with envy. But now he was probably hide¬ 
ously disfigured. She couldn’t bear to see anything 
horrid; it was silly, but she was like that. He 
would have to leave the Army, of course, never 
wear uniform again. India would have been such 
fun. ... It was a pretty woman’s paradise, ac¬ 
cording to all the novels she had read. Now there 
would have to leave the Army, of course; never 
not the smart country, of big houses, and hunting, 
and race meetings, and shoots, but the country of 
five miles from a railway station, candles and oil 
lamps, the vicar’s wife and the doctor’s wife, and 
the eternal drip, drip of the rain. 

She saw a vision of herself, beautiful still, but 
worn and thin, in shabby tweeds and country-made, 
clod-hopping shoes. Her hands red and scratched 
with gardening, from which there appeared to be no 
escape in rural life. And Maurice? Why he 
wouldn’t even be able to dress himself properly. 

TO 


Monte Yelis 


Blind people got so messy. He might even grow 
a beard. He would have to, if the only alternative 
was that she should shave him. She really couldn’t 
do things like that, and if he had a servant, which 
would be a frightful expense, the man would prob¬ 
ably drink, or always be giving notice. It would 
be impossible to keep servants in such a place. It 
might even come to her having to do quite a lot of 
things herself. Blood-chilling stories of people 
who, since the war, had never had more than an 
occasional “woman from the village for the rough 
work” menaced her. Even here in town it had 
been bad enough. Her sister had made the beds 
for weeks at a time. 

Some women might be able to do it, the sort 
of women who had been brought up to that sort 
of thing and were so hopelessly plain, anyhow, 
that it didn’t matter what they looked like. But 
she—it would kill her. She was sure her lungs 
were not very strong. Besides, how could they 
ever be happy living such a life? Maurice would 
get crankier and crankier. Even the short fort¬ 
night they had been engaged before he went away 
hadn’t been all peace. She had found it quite im¬ 
possible to make him see a lot of things in the way 
she saw them. She told herself that she had been 


Monte Felis 

feeling for a long time how dreadful it would be 
if they got married and then it didn’t turn out well. 

After all, did any Englishman really understand 
women? Weren’t they all utterly selfish when it 
came to the point? They weren’t capable of see¬ 
ing that a very beautiful girl couldn’t be judged 
by ordinary standards of merit. She was like a 
great work of art, a national triumph, and as such 
to be guarded and worshipped, and her every wish 
satisfied. There were men (not Englishmen who 
would only laugh if you tried to explain this), who 
felt it very strongly. It would not be right to 
throw away her gifts, which as had been so truly 
said, were given her to make the world happier and 
better. Who could be the better or the happier for 
them in Little Morton, where nobody, who was any¬ 
body, would see her from one year’s end to the 
other ? 

A fortunate accident had put it in her power 
to break off her engagement in such a way that 
no one could suppose that Maurice’s blindness had 
anything to do with it—as of course it hadn’t. 
She had made up her mind long before she knew. 

The sound of someone moving overhead roused 
her from her reflections. She hastily returned 
Mrs. Reval’s letter to its envelope, firmly sticking 


12 


Monte Felis 


down the flap. Her own letter she put into the 
pocket of her coat, wishing that she had left it 
unopened. It would have looked as if she had 
been out all the time. 

Tip-toeing across the hall she opened the door 
noiselessly and went out into the dusky street. 
There was no one in sight as she made her way 
to the nearest Tube station and took a ticket for 
Dover Street. As she stood on the platform wait¬ 
ing for a train she looked like a shaft of sunlight 
in a dingy area, a Psyche in ivory and gold, for 
despite the lateness of the season she was dressed 
in white from the crown of her perfect little head 
to the soles of her equally perfect little feet, rough 
white serge and white fox furs—an eccentricity 
that cost her mother half her meagre income, but 
which was more than justified in the eyes of the 
casual beholder. As usual the male element among 
the passengers paid a gratifying tribute to her 
charms, and though she was used enough to the 
mild sensation her appearance invariably provoked, 
she was no more weary of it than she was of look¬ 
ing in her glass. Even a whispered argument be¬ 
tween two very young men as to whether she was 
“the kind you speak to” did not displease her. 
Their obviously ardent wish to approach her was 


13 


Monte Felis 

an apology in itself. Poor boys. Of course it 
would not even do to let them see she noticed 
them. 

She left the train rather regretfully and walked 
up the street to the door of a woman’s club. 

"Is Miss Towers in?” she asked the porter. 
"No? Oh well, it’s all right. I’ll wait for her, 
she’s expecting me.” 

The porter looked dubious, but showed her into 
a reception-room which contained a coke fire, a 
week-old copy of the Financial Times, and a dusty 
writing-table. 

Corisande went straight to the fire and taking 
the crumpled letter from her pocket thrust it into 
the hottest part of the coals, prodding it in with the 
poker till it blazed beyond all danger of extinction. 
This done she sat down at the writing-table and 
studied the defects of the two pens it offered her,. 
Choosing the one that was most corroded but 
boasted of both prongs, she wrote: 

"Darling Maurice,” and then paused to draw 
circles on the olotting paper. She completed a 
row of ten very neatly and then turned to her let¬ 
ter again. "I’ve been thinking that it’s time this 
silly joke about our being engaged came to an end. 


Monte Felis 

Don’t you? You see I’m grown up now, nearly' 
nineteen, and mother says I must be serious and 
not rag about like I used to when I was a kid.” 
Another halt to read over what she had written. 
It wasn’t quite what she had meant to say, but she 
thought it would do. If you wanted a thing out of 
the way it helped a lot to assume that it had never 
existed. Her eye fell on her engagement ring, a 
large square sapphire set in small diamonds. She 
transferred it to her right hand and surveyed it 
with affection. The stone might have been darker, 
she reflected, but all the same it made her fingers 
look very white. Ought she to say anything about 
it ? She believed people gave back engagement 
rings when they broke off engagements, but then, 
she asked herself seriously, had it ever really been 
an engagement? Her letter proved that she had 
never considered it in that light. If it were not 
an engagement, what was the difference between 
the ring and the watch-bracelet Jackie had simply 
forced on her, or the gold chain bag she had been 
compelled to accept from somebody else? Her 
mother was inclined to be stuffy about these things 
sometimes, but even she was beginning to realize 
that the old nonsense about men and women not 
being friends was over and done with. No, it 

15 


Monte Felis 

would be just like a silly Victorian Miss to go 
sending back her ring. She would keep it to re¬ 
member dear Maurice by. She sighed senti¬ 
mentally. He had been rather nice sometimes, espe¬ 
cially those first days. 

Patch Reval had asked her down to Revals 
Langley just before poor Jack Reval died. Mau¬ 
rice was there, fresh from two years in Mesopo¬ 
tamia. She remembered how he had changed col¬ 
our and stared at her when she had come into the 
hall where they were all at tea. Patch had had to 
yell at him before he answered her and then he had 
said something so stupid that everybody had laughed. 
Corisande had been pleasantly fluttered though she 
would have preferred it if Archie had been the 
victim. He was not nearly so good-looking to be 
sure, but then he was in the Guards instead of the 
Indian Cavalry, and would be a baronet when the 
old General died. But Archie had already fallen 
to the bow and spear of a florid grass widow with 
tomato-coloured hair, and Corisande to show she 
didn’t care allowed herself to be made love to in 
a dumb, breathless fashion by Maurice. It was 
rather fun, especially after she discovered she could 
make him really angry and miserable by flirting 
with two or three of Patch’s “little boys”—callow 
16 


Monte Felis 

youths with sticky hands and high-pitched laughs, 
culled from the neighbouring university. 

For a day or two she had amused herself by 
seeing how much he would stand, and then, after 
a prolonged study of his photograph in full uni¬ 
form, and hearing Patch say that his family were 
determined he should marry a girl with money, she 
suddenly decided to conclude matters. 

It was strictly according to plan, therefore, that 
Maurice, in a mood of wide tolerance induced by 
a good day’s hunting on a superlatively good horse, 
should have come upon her unexpectedly in a little 
larch wood, as he rode home through the Spring 
twilight. She was standing with her back against 
a dark evergreen, her eyes turned towards the prim¬ 
rose sky. As usual she was in white, her red- 
gold hair puffing out under her white fur cap. So 
absorbed did she seem that she only came to earth 
with an effort when Maurice was off his horse and 
standing before her. 

“Did you come to meet me ?” he asked huskily. 

Corisande looked up at him, her mouth drooping 
as if a very little would make her cry. They had 
had something like a quarrel the night before, or 
rather she had quarrelled and he had sulked. 

“You aren’t going to be cross with me again, 

17 


Monte Pelis 


are you?” There was a little catch in her voice 
which was really due to excitement but made the 
infatuated Maurice feel utterly abased. For five 
or six minutes she played him like a salmon, and 
then as her feet were getting cold, she gave in grace¬ 
fully. What followed was deliciously exhilarating 
if rather bewildering. She wondered if the wing 
in her hat had suffered much, and found to her 
intense annoyance that the horse, availing himself 
of the general abstraction, had snuffed all down her 
sleeve. 

Heigho! Would anything like it be quite the 
same again? She shut her eyes, smiling, as the 
colour rose slowly in her cheeks. How he had 
worshipped her! For a moment she looked doubt¬ 
fully at her letter. His adoration of her beauty 
had always intoxicated her. It was that she would 
miss, and now he would never be able to see her 
again. For the first time she came a little nearer 
to realizing what total blindness might mean. Poor, 
poor darling. But it only made it all the more 
impossible. She was perfectly hopeless with sick 
people. She knew it. It was much better to recog¬ 
nize one’s own defects. Besides, if he couldn’t see 
her, what good would it do to be with him? 

No, she was doing what was best and kindest 
18 


Monte Felis 


for both of them. She put her pen firmly in the 
ink once more and wrote rapidly.- ‘‘I shall always 
wear that ring you gave me, because you are the 
best friend I have, and I love to have something to 
remember you by when you are so far away. I 
wonder when you’ll get leave again and if I shall 
be in town. Perhaps I shall, perhaps I shan’t. 

Good luck and a good time. 

Yours, Corisande.” 

She wrote his name, Captain M. L. Bannister, 
on an envelope, and then hesitated. Suppose they 
were sending him home and he didn’t get it before 
he left? She put it in another envelope and ad¬ 
dressed it to Mrs. Reval with a line saying that 
she had mislaid his last letter and was not sure 
where he was, would Patch forward it at once? 

Then, with a deep sigh as if a heavy burden had 
been disposed of, she took another sheet of paper, 
and crossing out the club address wrote her own. 

“Dear Mr. van Housen,” she began, excitement 
dawning in her eyes, “you simply took my breath 
away! Why you only saw me for the first time 
to-day, and you say I must send you an answer 
to-night! I think we must have known each other 

19 


Monte Felis 


in some former state” (this was an inspiration, ton¬ 
ing down what might have seemed unduly abrupt) ; 
“at least I can’t help feeling this is so. Come and 
see me to-morrow at eleven. 

Corisande.” 

With a little skill she could still keep in with 
Patch Reval she said to herself as she licked the 
flap of the envelope, and after all was that so very 
important? Might she not in certain circumstances 
be in a position to flout Patch? In the end it was 
money that really counted. 


20 


Chapter II 


O N the outskirts of the market town of 
Crampton, there stands a large country 
house, which served as a hospital during 
the war, and failing other purposes, had survived 
the general demobilization of such establishments 
as a convalescent pendant to the permanent Naval 
and Military Hospitals, for such sick officers as 
lacked homes in England, or needed more treat¬ 
ment than was feasible in many of them. 

It was there that Maurice Bannister had been 
taken on his arrival in England, rather than to his 
own home in Cumberland which was too far from 
the doctors, and there that he now lay in one of 
the narrow white beds in an upstairs room. 

There were three other beds besides his, each 
with a little table beside it, bearing that jackdaw’s 
treasure of small objects which usually adorns a 
man’s dressing-table. On one or two of them there 
were women’s photographs, and on a third a child’s. 
On all were cigarettes and old battered pipes. 
Books too, and illustrated magazines. Only on 


21 


Monte Fells 

one table there were no picture papers and no photo¬ 
graphs, because neither would have been of any use 
to the man who couldn’t see. 

He lay so very still that he seemed to be asleep, 
though whether he was or not was difficult to say, 
for the upper part of his face was entirely covered 
by bandages, which left only his sharply arched 
nostrils, and full-lipped mouth, with a clipped black 
moustache, visible. 

Presently there was a sound of footsteps, halting 
outside the door. A quiver ran through the still 
figure on the bed. He had not been asleep, but 
listening very intently. As the door opened he 
turned his head sharply. 

“He’ll be glad you’ve come,” reached him in a 
nurse’s cheerful voice. “It’s dull for him when 
the others go downstairs, and they won’t be up for 
an hour or more. Are you asleep, Captain Ban¬ 
nister?” 

The tense expectancy died out of the pose of 
his head and his whole body relaxed. 

“It’s Mrs. Cassilis, isn’t it?” he asked indiffer¬ 
ently. 

A tall, thin woman, in old-fashioned, rather 
shabby clothes came towards the bed, and sat down 
on a chair which the nurse placed for her. 


22 


Monte ¥elis 


“What can I do for you this afternoon. Shall 
I read ? Or are there letters you want me to 
write?” She spoke gently, but as one for whom 
the person she addresses has no special identity. 

Captain Bannister did not answer immediately. 
He lay with his head turned away as if he had not 
heard her. The nurse bustled about the hearth, 
making up the fire. Mrs. Cassilis took off her 
heavy coat and folded her hands in her lap. She 
looked like a delicate old-fashioned water-colour, 
which had been partly washed out. There were 
tiny lines round her mouth and eyes, but though 
her neck and chin were very thin they showed no 
signs of sagging muscles, in contradiction to her 
wide set grey eyes which had lost all the look of 
expectation that constitutes youth, and her soft 
fair hair which appeared dull and faded where it 
showed under her unbecoming hat. But she must 
have been a pretty girl, most people would have 
said, and then have felt astonished to hear she was 
barely thirty. 

Her eyes rested calmly on the man in the bed. 
She was thinking, not for the first time, that he 
was like Zurbaran’s picture of the Spanish monk. 
The mouth and chin were curiously like, and so 
were the hands that lay on the counterpane—strong. 

23 


Monte Felis 


brown and nervous, like a monk’s hands holding 
the skull, which looked as if they had once known 
more formidable employment. She had tried to 
copy the picture, some years before, and had been 
rather pleased with the results of her effort. 

Where was it now, by the way? Gone in the 
sale most likely, like everything else, the sale that 
had been a welcome bonfire into which she could 
fling every tangible token of her life with poor 
Edward. 

She wished she had kept the little picture, though. 

But what did it matter? Nothing mattered. 

She had never lived, and now she was dead. Too 
dead even to feel sorry for herself. 

A movement from the man in the bed recalled 
her thoughts. He was feeling under the pillow for 
something, and presently pulled out a little brown 
leather pocket-book. Three unopened letters fell 
out. Mrs. Cassilis had time to see that they were 
all in the same handwriting before the groping fin¬ 
gers found them and gathered them together. Be¬ 
neath the edge of the bandage and right down to 
the collar of his pyjama jacket, a dark flush had 
spread itself, and he was breathing rather quickly. 

“I wonder,” he began, with a little jerk in his 
voice, “if you would be awfully good and read some 
24 


Monte Felis 


letters to me? They came after I was knocked 
over, and they’re rather private. I’m afraid I 
shan’t be able to read them myself for some time. 

I—I should like to know what’s in them, and you’ve 
been so awfully good to me, perhaps you wouldn’t 
mind.” 

Mrs. Cassilis took them from him. 

“Shall I read them in the order of their dates?” 

“Yes, please.” 

The thin fingers were twitching and fidgeting 
with the sheet. She put a cigarette-case into them, 
and when he was ready for it, struck a match. 
Then in the same deliberate, impersonal way she 
opened the first letter and began to read. 

“Darling old Maurice. What an age it is since 
I wrote to you, but you mustn’t be cross, because 
I’ve had such heaps to do.” There followed a 
long account of dances, dinners, and lunches, all 
with different, but apparently equally infatuated, 
admirers. A silly not to say vulgar little letter, 
such as the reader supposed silly little girls were in 
the habit of writing to good-looking men. Was 
this one engaged to Captain Bannister? He cer¬ 
tainly seemed to feel a good deal about her, but 
her point of view was not so clear. “So I changed 
my ring on to my right hand, and that night he 

25 


Monte Felis 


actually proposed to me. Romantic garden, moon¬ 
light, and soft music. My dear, he nearly wept 
when I murmured the tragic truth. I shrieked and 
so did Patch, and of course he left next morning, 
‘dog-cart at eight,’ and all that.” Mrs. Cassilis 
glanced towards the bed. That sort of man. . . . 
It seemed a pity. He was lying quiet and con¬ 
tented, a little smile playing about his lips. Per¬ 
haps he knew how much it all amounted to. She 
went on to the second letter which was in the same 
strain. 

It was three weeks now since Maurice Bannister 
had arrived in England, and every day he had 
expected that Corisande would come, but so far 
she had given no sign except this note that Patch 
had brought down, which she said had reached 
her the day after the news came that he was hurt. 
She had not forwarded it as Corisande had asked 
her to, for fear it might miss him. Should she 
read it? No, he would rather keep it and Cori¬ 
sande should read it to him herself. When did 
Patch think she would come ? Mrs. Reval had 
answered vaguely and shortly. She hadn’t seen 
Corisande, which seemed strange. She would 
come again as soon as she could, but darling Mau¬ 
rice must realize how fearfully rushed she was. 
26 


Monte Felis 

She hardly had time to see a soul. Their father, 
too, was worrying her life out about Archie, who 
as usual was making every kind of fool of him¬ 
self with a perfectly impossible woman: she simply 
had to try and keep her eye on him. Maurice must 
hurry up and get well enough to be moved to Cur- 
zon Street, and she would get in some really nice 
girls to amuse him. With which she had kissed 
him affectionately and departed. 

Since then he had had no visitors unless you 
could count this Mrs. Cassilis, who came to the hos¬ 
pital every afternoon to read, write letters, and do 
odd jobs for the patients. He liked to have her 
there, she was quieter than the nurses—so quiet that 
he often forgot she was in the room. Her voice 
soothed his jarred nerves—besides, she always 
seemed to know what he wanted, and what was 
more, what he didn’t want, without putting him to 
the trouble of saying so. She was such a shadow, 
so aloof from ordinary life, that he felt he could 
let her read Corrie’s letters without feeling that a 
third person was coming between them, and to-day 
it had seemed to him that he couldn’t wait any 
longer. Corrie would come; of course she would. 
Probably her mother was making some silly fuss 
about her coming alone, and hadn’t time to bring 

27 


Monte Felis 

her herself. If it wasn’t to-day, it would be to¬ 
morrow. This note would probably explain every¬ 
thing. He waited eagerly for the opening of the 
third envelope. . . . What was that? 

“I’ve been thinking that it’s about time this silly 
joke of our being engaged came to an end.” Mrs. 
Cassilis dropped the letter with a little gasp. 

“Go on, go on,” said Maurice hoarsely. The 
buzzing in his ears almost deafened him. She 
steadied her voice as well as she could and read 
firmly to the end, feeling that to drive in the knife 
quickly was the most merciful course. 

“Thank you,” he said between shut teeth, as 
she finished. “Thank you, I—I think that’s all.” 

She guessed that more than anything he wanted 
her to go away at once without speaking. With¬ 
out waiting to put on her coat, she went quietly 
out of the room, her eyes full of unwonted tears 
and her pale lips trembling. 


28 


Chapter III 


N r EXT morning’s wintry sun, peering in at 
the dining-room window of Morley Edge 
with the dubious cheerfulness of a red 
nose, found the Morland family assembled for the 
prayers that always preceded breakfast. From the 
passage behind the second door came a subdued 
crackling of starched print, indicating that the 
maidservants only awaited the summons of the bell. 
Inside the room everybody was in their places ex¬ 
cept Rachel Cassilis. On one side of the fireplace 
sat Enid Morland with her feet crossed. She was 
frowning at the buckle on her uppermost shoe 
which needed sewing. The housemaid had forgot¬ 
ten to do it again, and it would end in Enid hav¬ 
ing to take time from her practising to do it her¬ 
self. When she had a house of her own she would 
take care that the servants were not so slack. Her 
mother spoilt them, and they did their work no 
better in consequence. 

Mrs. Morland was in her chair at the head of 
the table, but pushed back from it so as to signify 

29 




Merite Felis 

that her immediate purpose was not food. She 
fixed a threatening eye on the kettle which was 
gurgling to itself, and had a trick of unfairly, and 
as she felt irreverently, boiling over as soon as she 
turned her back to it. 

In the bow-window stood Mr. Morland, with his 
face to a small dining-room lectern and his back 
to the thrushes on the lawn. He was alternately 
fidgeting with his book-markers and glaring over 
his eyeglasses at the door. 

The whole room was suffused with an inviting 
aroma of sausages and bacon. 

‘"Rachel not coming down?” Mr. Morland snapped 
at Enid. 

Enid assumed that expression of peculiar sweet¬ 
ness she invariably wore when saying how she 
loathed getting other people into trouble. 

“She was only just dressing when I came down. 

I offered to stay and help her instead of going for 
my run round the garden. I know how it vexes 
you when she is late, but she seemed to want to get 
rid of me. I expect she’s been reading some of 
those dozens of French novels she has, and has over¬ 
slept herself.” 

Mrs. Morland sighed. 

“I do wish she were more settled,” she re- 


30 


Monte Felis 

marked, apparently to the kettle. “I was talking 
about it to V iolet, and she was saying that she never 
thought Rachel started off with any kind of home 
life in view. It’s a great mistake when young 
people don’t. That living in London now, and 
knowing all those people, they may have been very 
grand and amusing, but she would have done 
much better to have settled down here as Violet 
did.” 

Mr. Morland snapped the case of his watch. 

“I can’t wait for her any longer,” he growled. 
“Ring the bell, Enid.” 

The five maidservants filed into the room headed 
by the cook and seated themselves on five chairs, 
placed with their backs against the sideboard. Mrs. 
Morland turned the wick of the kettle a little lower, 
and arranged her plump features in an expression 
of blank detachment, as her husband cleared his 
throat and proceeded to deliver his instructions to 
the Almighty for the ensuing day, in a loud hector¬ 
ing voice. 

Ten minutes later, the concluding amen was 
reached, and as the servants left the room, Rachel 
entered it. She looked much younger without a 
hat, but worn and fragile as if she had recently had 
a severe illness. The dark circles under her eyes 

31 


Monte Felis 


were more pronounced than usual, and in reply to 
her aunt’s inquiry she admitted that she had a head¬ 
ache. 

“You’d be perfectly well if you didn’t read so 
much,” said Enid briskly. “I can do a good day’s 
work and laugh and joke at the end of it. I’m 
sure it’s because I get up early enough and go for 
a good run round the garden. I shall call you to¬ 
morrow and drag you out whether you want to come 
or not.” 

Rachel made no reply. She was making up her 
mind that she would not go near Captain Bannister 
again unless he asked for her. After yesterday it 
seemed unlikely that he would. She was sorry. 
It was a long time since she was conscious of having 
a feeling one way or another about anything, but 
now that they were over she was aware that the 
hours she had spent with him had been soothing and 
peaceful. He was so considerate, so grateful for 
little things. Besides there was something strangely 
appealing about him, not only his blindness, there 
were other blind men in the hospital. She thought 
he must have been a very dear little boy, and won¬ 
dered what sort of a mother he had had. Like 
most people she was fairly familiar with the careers 
of Mrs. Reval and Major Bannister, through the 
32 


Monte Felis 

medium of an enlightened Press, and was mildly 
surprised to find that this man was their brother. 

Mrs. Morland and Enid bore the burden of the 
conversation, as the head of the house had disap¬ 
peared behind the Daily Mail. They read their 
letters aloud to each other and discussed the writ¬ 
ers in terms of mild disparagement. 

Enid Morland stood five feet eight in her stock¬ 
ings and took seven in shoes and gloves. Her 
straight corn-coloured hair was vigorously brushed 
back from her pink healthy face and clubbed to¬ 
gether at the nape of her neck. She could drive 
a golf ball further than any other girl in Cramp- 
ton, and was the only cyclist, male or female, ex¬ 
cept the errand boys, who could ride up the station 
hill without getting off. Being quite sure about 
everything life presented her with few problems. 
It was all simple enough if one did what was right, 
which in Enid’s case consisted in performing agree¬ 
able tasks with an appearance of self-sacrifice and 
rejecting others as against common sense. She 
gave her family a feeling of the most complete se¬ 
curity that she would never , allow anything tire¬ 
some to happen to her, in return for which they 
were ready enough to accept her at her own val¬ 
uation. 


33 


Monte Felis 


She had recently become engaged to a young 
man whose father had left him five thousand a 
year and a partnership in one of the oldest busi¬ 
nesses in Hollingham. Letters of congratulation 
were now pouring in, from which she read aloud 
all the passages relating to Tom Willson’s extraor¬ 
dinary good fortune. 

In the intervals of listening to Enid, Mrs. Mor- 
land was trying to see who Rachel's letters were 
from, without appearing to be looking. Ever since 
things had gone wrong with the Cassilis she had 
been in a state of perpetual apprehension that some¬ 
thing not at all nice would crop up. Rachel had 
had foreign up-bringing which made one uncom¬ 
fortable, and then seeing her name at one time in 
the papers at parties. She supposed it was be¬ 
cause she had married a barrister whose calling, 
though admittedly lucrative and therefore respect¬ 
able, was bound to be uncomfortably public. It 
was all against their own traditions. She could 
never put her fears into so many words, but she 
felt an anxious curiosity about any of her niece's 
affairs which she could not see right through to the 
back. As, however, in the present case the en¬ 
velopes revealed nothing, she was at length obliged 
to say brightly: 

34 


Monte Felis 


“Anything interesting for you this morning, 
Rachel? It’s nice to hear everybody’s news. The 
girls always read their letters aloud.” 

Rachel turned over the little heap by her plate. 

“A receipted bill, the invoice from the place 
where my trunks are stored, and the report from 
the asylum. Shall I read that?” she added with a 
sudden gust of irritation. 

Mr. Morland glanced over his shoulder to see 
if there were any servants in the room. It was 
generally understood that Edward Cassilis was hav¬ 
ing a rest cure. Really Rachel seemed to take a 
delight in making things as difficult for them all as 
she could. 

“No, no-” exclaimed her aunt. “Yes, that 

is, of course, we want to hear how poor dear Ed¬ 
ward is. Just give it us shortly.” 

“His health is much improved. His weight has 
increased. He has had no lucid interval so far, 
and they have had to put another man on to watch 
him.” 

Poor Mrs. Morland really didn’t quite know 
what to say for the best, so she changed the sub¬ 
ject rapidly, and yet as she felt not unkindly by 
exclaiming dramatically: 

“Enid! Did you hear me tell Jevons about or- 

35 



Monte Felis 


dering the sweetbreads for to-night? If I didn't 
we shall never get them in time.” 

“Yes, you did,” her daughter assured her. “Don't 
you remember I turned back when I was going to 
town to remind you?” 

“I thought you had forgotten your umbrella,” 
Rachel was unable to resist suggesting. But it 
passed unnoticed. 

“So you did, dear,” assented Mrs. Morland. “I 
remember how kind you were. I am thankful.” 

Mr. Morland folded up the Daily Mail, put away 
his eyeglasses, sucked his moustache, and rose from 
his chair. 

“Don’t forget to tell Gubbins the drive wants 
weeding,” he called to his wife over his shoulder, 
as he left the room. Mrs. Morland ran after him, 
and before long the car was heard setting forth 
with its owner in good time to catch the 9.35 for 
Hollingham. 

Mrs. Morland returned from the doorstep and 
sat down by the morning-room fire for ten minutes’ 
perusal of yesterday’s paper before going to see her 
cook. But instead of reading the recipes in the 
section devoted to matters of domestic interest she 
was thinking to herself that Rachel’s visit had really 
lasted quite long enough, especially if she would 
36 


Monte Felis 

persist in talking about her husband’s illness in that 
heartless way just when anyone might hear her. 
It was all chance and nothing else that Mary had 
•not come into the room that very moment to say 
that the car was round. She ought to be thankful 
that they had been more or less successful in hush¬ 
ing the whole thing up. If Edward had really in¬ 
jured her as she persisted in thinking he meant to, 
it would have got into the papers, and been per¬ 
fectly awful for them all. Why the Willsons 
might even have tried to break off the engagement. 
She had cautioned Enid that while it might be 
right to have no secret from her future husband, 
she needn’t feel obliged to tell Tom that any one 
connected with them (only by marriage, of course) 
was in an asylum. There was no need to call it 
anything but a nervous breakdown if Rachel would 
only see it in a proper light. And then, too, she 
might smarten herself up a bit, and look more cheer¬ 
ful, but when she had tried to give her a little hint 
about her clothes she had replied that as nearly all 
her income went to pay Edward’s charges she 
couldn’t afford any new ones, and as Mrs. Morland 
had felt that to buy her any herself would be ab¬ 
surd, the matter had hung fire. One would have 
thought she would have made some effort if it 

37 


Monte Felis 

was only for the sake of a dear good unselfish girl 
like Enid, who was so happy just now. 

Rachel was very likely jealous, feeling that she 
had made such a mess of things herself, while both 
her cousins had done so well. Violet with a very 
nice house and a motor of her own, to say nothing 
of four dear little children, and Enid just about to 
enter a similar and even better furnished paradise. 
Now that the war was over and everything getting 
so much more comfortable again, everything would 
have been as pleasant as possible if only Rachel 
hadn’t come trailing her tragic figure across their 
sunny paths. Friends were always asking tiresome 
questions, and commenting on her miserable ap¬ 
pearance. Why couldn’t she pull herself together 
and look more like other people? It wasn’t as if 
poor Edward had died. He would very likely get 
better, and then it would all be all right again. 

Mrs. Morland’s indignation grew as she felt how 
selfishly Rachel was behaving to them all. Her 
inconsiderateness was probably at the bottom of 
poor Edward’s illness. It was no use asking them 
to be very sympathetic about what was so evidently 
her own fault. 

The sound of the front door shutting made her 
turn and look out of the window. There was 

38 


Monte Felis 


Rachel hurrying down the drive, on some errand 
in connection with the Convalescent Home, prob¬ 
ably, instead of staying and helping Enid with the 
flowers. It was all ridiculous nonsense now the 
war was over, but she always put others before her 
own family. 


39 


Chapter IV 


T N the afternoon Rachel went as usual to the 
Home. It was still supported by, and mainly 
under the direction of, the lady who owned 
the house and had run it as a hospital during the 
war. Miss Crosse had known and liked Rachel 
when she had come to live at Crampton after her 
parents’ deaths and before her marriage, and meet¬ 
ing her one day after her recent return, listless and 
unoccupied, had suggested that she should come and 
help her with her correspondence, and put in such 
time as remained in reading to the patients, mend¬ 
ing their clothes, and writing letters for such as 
were unable to do so for themselves. Rachel who 
had gladly seized the chance of real occupation and 
an escape from her aunt and cousin’s exhausting 
society, had quickly fitted herself into the machinery 
of the establishment. She was always courteous 
and friendly to the nurses, showed no disposition 
to flirt with the patients, or for that matter they 
with her, and saved the overworked staff in fifty 
different ways a day. 

This afternoon she was immediately in request 


40 




Monte Felis 


to write a letter for a man with an injured hand, 
in reply to a communication from his tailor, en¬ 
closing a number of little patterns of lounge suit¬ 
ings. It was a lengthy business, as Mr. Shaw’s 
five best friends also assisted. They had five differ¬ 
ent choices among the patterns, and Mr. Shaw 
showed a disposition to follow each in turn. Nor 
was it easy to keep them to the matter in hand, as 
they were all bubbling over with the success of a 
particularly subtle booby trap, set to ensnare the 
nightnurse when she came on duty the night before. 

Rachel wrote and rewrote the letter four times 
over, and was then confronted by the despondent 
statement that Mr. Shaw didn’t think he liked any 
of the stuffs, and that they were a beastly price 
anyhow. He thought he had better sleep on it, 
and then if he felt the same to-morrow, he would 
ask her to write for more patterns. 

She went on to a stout R.E. Major who had 
lost both legs in the war and was now losing his 
temper with his bead work. 

“Blast the thing,’’ he said. “I beg your pardon, 
Mrs. Cassilis, but the damned string goes 'into 
knots of itself, and none of the little swine have 
any holes in them. Confound my needle. It’s 
gone again.” 


41 


Monte Felis 


Rachel was still sorting out the beads that had 
been perforated from those which hadn’t, when the 
time came for her to return home. There had been 
no message for her to go to Captain Bannister. He 
was not so well, his nurse said, and Rachel did not 
venture to ask more. She felt much more tired 
than usual, and was shocked to find herself getting 
impatient even with poor old Major Armstrong. 
But surely he had never been quite so wearisome 
before ? 

At last after a week had passed and she had 
heard nothing, she came to the conclusion that her 
first impression had been right and that Captain 
Bannister had no further use for her services. Of 
course it was nothing to her, as she kept reminding 
herself. It was only that she was so horribly sorry 
for him, and couldn’t help feeling that the blow 
had been delivered through her, and that he must 
hate her for having had anything to do with it. 
The thought of it haunted her perpetually and often 
kept her awake at night. She supposed it was be¬ 
cause she had suffered so much herself that she 
couldn’t bear to feel that she had even unconsciously 
hurt anybody else. Finally she discovered that she 
would not mind nearly so much if she only knew 
that he had forgiven her for it. 

42 


Monte Felis 

Her thoughts were running in this strain one 
afternoon, when at last a nurse came to her with 
a message that he had asked for her. 

“He wanted you yesterday, but I couldn’t find 
you,” she remarked casually. 

Rachel felt all her colour rush into her face. 

“I was only helping Major Armstrong with his 
beads, and he doesn’t really need me,” she said, 
rather indignantly. 

“Can’t have seen you then, not behind him,” 
laughed the nurse. “Truth was I’d had enough 
of running up and down stairs, so I just told him 
you was busy.” She laughed again and then added 
more soberly, “He’s been awfully dull and quiet 
these last days.” 

Rachel was speechless. Nor could she at all un¬ 
derstand her own wrath, which seemed out of all 
proportion to the offence. Her heart beat suffocat¬ 
ingly as she went upstairs. Now it came to the 
point she almost wished he hadn’t sent for her. 
How would he greet her? Would he make any 
allusion to last time? She stood still for a minute 
outside the door to regain her breath. He couldn’t 
see her so she ought to be able to behave perfectly 
naturally. 

He was lying just as he always lay, but to-day 

43 


Monte Fells 


there was a weariness, a relaxation of all his 
muscles, that she noticed at once. His face, as 
much as she could see of it, looked thinner. 

This time there was no eager turning of his head. 
His visitor understood it now. He seemed uncon¬ 
scious of her presence until she stood beside him. 
She stooped to pick up some matches that had fallen 
on the floor, and began to replace them in a box 
trying to think of something to say. 

“It’s very good of you, Mrs. Cassilis,” he said 
at last. His voice had a weary sound, and he 
paused as if he had forgotten what he was going 
to say next. There was no dislike in his tone, 
Rachel thought, only utter indifference. She saw 
that she had been no more in the matter than the 
paper on which the letter had been written. 

“I’m sorry so to drag you up here,” he went 
on. “I hoped my sister would have come to-da} r , 
and then I shouldn't have had to bother you.” 

“What is it? Nothing is any trouble. I come 
here to do anything I can for any of you.” She 
tried to make her voice sound as indifferent as his, 
but her hearer must have noticed a little shake in it, 
for he said rather hurriedly : 

“It's only a business letter. You’ll find it some¬ 
where on the table. I expect its got ‘Moss and 
44 


Monte Felis 


Wheatly’ printed on the envelope. Would you 
mind reading it to me and then writing the an¬ 
swer?” 

Rachel obeyed. It was a letter from a firm of 
solicitors informing their client that, in pursuance 
of his instructions, they had given due notice to the 
occupants of the house at Little Morton known as 
Greyladies that they must leave at the termination 
of their lease at the March quarter, as Captain Ban¬ 
nister intended to occupy the mansion himself. 
When she reached the end she took up a writing- 
pad and waited, but for a long time Maurice lay 
silent. 

“It’s a dear old place,” he murmured presently, 
almost as if to himself. “It belonged to my moth¬ 
er’s people. Not big, you know, or anything out 
of the way. The others think it’s a frightful barn 
because there’s no light except lamps and candles, 
and only one bathroom. Also I suppose it is a 
bit damp. It used to be a convent before the Ref¬ 
ormation—that’s why it’s called Greyladies. They 
say some of the nuns haunt it still. I don’t know 
... I used to go down there for my holidays when 
I was a little chap, and stay with the housekeeper, 
who was full of every sort of yarn. She believed 
in the nuns all right—used to tell me they’d be 

45 


Monte Felis 


angry if I made a mess of their fruit trees. . . . 
There’s a little brown stream I used to fish in, 
and a garden full of lavender bushes and those tall 
white lilies, stacks of them. They say they’ve al¬ 
ways been there. Some one tried to get rid of them 
once. I don’t know why, but they came up again, 
more of them than ever next Spring.” 

“Yes?” said Rachel softly as he paused. “Tell 
me more.” 

“I don’t know that there’s much more to tell. 
The rooms are panelled with some sort of dark 
wood, and in some of them there is a lot of old 
faded tapestry. They tell me it’s good, I don’t 
know anything about it except that some of it is 
pretty ragged, but the colours are jolly. There’s 
not much furniture and I’m afraid that what there 
is is pretty worm-eaten. None of the chairs are 
very safe. Patch and Archie never could stand 
the place, even when they were kids, but I would 
rather it was mine than Watersmeeting. You know 
how there are some places you care an awful lot 
about without exactly knowing why. But Patch 
was right, we couldn’t have lived in it without any 
amount of doing up.” 

His tone had changed and he stopped abruptly. 

“I was forgetting all about the letter,” he went 


46 


Monte Felis 

on in the rather formal way he usually spoke to her. 
“Will you please tell them that I shan’t want the 
house after all.” 

Rachel wrote the letter and read it over to him. 

“You might just add that I’ve changed my mind 
about making a new will,” he said jerkily as she 
came to the end. The colour was hot under his 
dark skin and she noticed that his face twitched 
slightly. She wondered if something should not 
be said about the settlements which had probably 
been under consideration, but she could not bring 
herself to do it and hoped the lawyers would ob¬ 
serve a similar reticence. She added the paragraph 
about the will, and then putting the pen in his hand 
guided it to the place for the signature. When it 
was done he lay back with a little sigh that sounded 
like relief. 

“You’re not in a hurry?” he asked. 

“No, not a bit. Shall I read?” 

“I’d rather talk, if you don’t mind. Somehow 
my brain’s gone all woolly lately, and I can’t follow 
a book for long. I’ve been yarning about Grey- 
ladies, so it’s your turn now. Tell me where you 
live. . . . Do you mind?” 

For Rachel seemed to hesitate. Did he really 
want to know? 


47 


Monte Felis 

“Of course not,” she replied lightly, “only it’s 
all very dull. I live with an uncle and aunt and 
their unmarried daughter. Their house, which is 
called Morley Edge, is very new, very clean, and 
very red. It has all the latest improvements. The 
furniture is all very new too, and every room is 
conscientiously furnished in a different style. The 
dining-room is Jacobean and the drawing-room 
Louis-Seize—just like those sort of loose-boxes ar¬ 
ranged in different periods that you see in the win¬ 
dows of big furniture shops. In the garden there 
is everything there should be, very well controlled. 
Nothing sticks out too far, or gets on top of the 
next thing, and of course there are no weeds. Even 
the roses are educated to climb up and down poles 
and creep along chains without getting untidy. 
Then there is a large kitchen garden which pro¬ 
duced the finest kinds of everything, and a drive 
which is at least two-thirds longer than it need be, 
I suppose for fear you should come on the house 
before Aunt Minna has had time to say she isn’t 
at home.” 

Maurice smiled cryptically. 

“I believe you’d love Greyladies,” he said. “Now 
tell me about the people.” 

Rachel told herself that she really did mean to 

48 


Monte Felis 

be perfectly loyal to her family, but she desperately 
wanted to amuse and interest him. 

“Well, first of all, my uncle’s name is John Mor- 
land. He is the senior partner in Henry Morland 
and Sons, who make iron things in Hollingham. 
He is short and stout and reads the lessons in 
church. The Daily Mail does all his thinking for 
him, and Aunt Minna all his talking. She, Aunt 
Minna, is an excellent manager. Her servants 
never leave her and her parties are much more 
successful than anybody else’s. She is very care¬ 
fully and handsomely upholstered by a big shop in 
Hollingham, thinks it’s rather fast to get one’s 
clothes in London, and that Paris frocks are the 
livery of Satan.” 

“Do go on,” urged Maurice, laughing weakly. 

“Then there’s Enid, the unmarried daughter, who 
is very like what Aunt Minna must have been at 
the same age. She is also very clever, and never 
makes mistakes. She is going to be married next 
month to a young man called Tom Willson. He 
was in the 12th Hollinghamshires during the war. 
I believe Enid nursed him when he was wounded 
—he still looks more washed than most people.” 

“Poor devil,” interjected Maurice. “I believe I 
ran across him in Basra. The 12th Hollybushes 

49 


Monte Felis 


were there for a bit. He wasn't a bad chap, as 
far as I can remember. New Army, you know.” 

“No, he isn’t at all bad, and three years’ soldier¬ 
ing smartened him up, and gave him a few ideas 
beyond business and Hollingham. Even now he 
hasn’t quite got back the creased look, as if he’d 
slept in his clothes—that his brothers have. But 
after a year or two of Enid’s good management. I’m 
afraid he’ll be just as stupified with food and com¬ 
fort as Harold Greenwood.” 

“Who’s he?” 

“Violet’s husband. Violet is Enid’s married sis¬ 
ter. They live at a house called Athenley, a little 
further up the Hollingham Road. It’s exactly like 
Morley Edge, only not quite so big. Violet is 
great on old furniture. I never really grasped the 
scope of faith till I saw her belief in her antiques. 
She has four children, whose conversation no one 
is ever allowed to interrupt, and whose sayings to¬ 
gether with what the servants do or don’t do, fur¬ 
nish most of our talk at family dinners—which re¬ 
minds me there is one to-night,” she broke off in a 
panic, as her eye met her watch. 

She had completely forgotten the hour, and now 
would have to run the best part of the way home 
if she were to be back in time. 


50 


Monte Felis 


Maurice was obviously disinclined to let her go. 

‘'Do come to me first to-morrow,” he said as he 
held her hand. “You can put somebody else on to 
see old Armstrong doesn’t swallow his beads.” 

Mrs. Cassilis was coming out in a new light. 
He wondered if she was quite as old as he had at 
first imagined. She spoke of an uncle and aunt as 
if they were quite able-bodied—not that that was 
anything to go by; generations often overlapped in 
the collateral branches. It must be pretty rotten 
for her though, living with such awful people. 

Rachel hurried home feeling absurdly elated. It 
was the first time he had seemed to care whether 
she came or not. 


Chapter V 


T HE Morland family dinners took place with 
the utmost regularity once a week. Before 
Rachel's arrival they had been a compact 
little party of six, including Harold, Violet, and 
Tom Willson. But now the table either looked lop¬ 
sided or they were obliged to ask the bachelor vicar, 
who, though they had known him for twenty years, 
they still felt was an outsider. 

To-night the vicar had sent a note to the effect 
that he was down with influenza, which, Mrs. Mor¬ 
land felt, showed very little sense of all that Mr. 
Morland had done for him. It was too late to get 
anyone else even if she had been able to think of 
some one who was free enough of family ties to 
come alone, and yet on a sufficiently familiar foot¬ 
ing at Morley Edge to be privileged to witness the 
mysteries of Enid and Tom’s courtship. 

“We can’t ask a total stranger,” she said plain¬ 
tively to her husband. She was sitting on a chair 
which was much too small for her, talking to him 
while he dressed for dinner. She always dressed 
52 


Monte Felis 

early herself, so as to have this time to pour out an 
account of the day’s triumphs or catastrophes, when 
he could not very well escape from her, or pretend 
to be asleep. 

“We can’t ask strangers in. Enid and Tqm can’t 
go off to the billiard-room if we do, and it’s so dis¬ 
appointing for them in the only time they get to¬ 
gether, except Saturdays and Sundays. If Rachel 
were not here, they could go, and we could have 
our four of bridge without the tablp being all 
crooked. . . 

“How long does Rachel mean to stop?” inter¬ 
rupted Mr. Morland, struggling with the stud at 
the back of his collar. He never attempted to fol¬ 
low in the devious path of his wife’s reflections 
but took short cuts, catching her up as she passed 
a salient point. 

Mrs. Morland shook her head. 

“I’m sure I don’t know. I never asked her. I 
didn’t like to. One is very sorry for her of course, 
though I can’t help feeling more and more that it 
must have been a great deal her own fault. She 
doesn’t seem to have any idea what a regular well- 
ordered life should be, though I’m sure I did my 
best to teach her when she was a girl. What she 
will do now, I can’t think. Perhaps she will go 

53 


Monte Felis 

away for a bit and then come back and help me with 
the wedding.” 

“You’d better get it settled as soon as you can,” 
grunted Mr. Morland as he shook himself into his 
coat. “And look here. I won’t have any talk of 
any woman in my family earning her own living; 
mind you make her understand that. She’d better 
see if she can’t find some elderly sensible woman to 
share a small house with her. If she’s careful she 
can make do on that three hundred she’s got left, 
but there won’t be any margin for Paris bonnets, 
tell her. I’ve done all I can for her seeing the 
lawyers don’t cheat her, and knocking fifty pounds 
off Edward’s keep, and a fine talk I had with the 
doctor fellow to get that much. Took me the best 
part of an hour’s arguing. I can’t do any more 
for her. We’ve got our own girls to look after.” 

“Yes, indeed,” echoed his wife seriously. 

“Harold and Tom are both doing well, I’m glad 
to say.” Mr. Morland went on glaring at his own 
reflection in the glass. “And I’ve not done as badly 
as some, but Lord knows where next year mayn’t 
land us, and we must think of the children.” 

“You’re a good father, John,” murmured Mrs. 
Morland, touched almost to tears. “You always 
put the children first. Rachel was well provided 
54 


Monte Felis 


for by her own parents. I’m very sorry for her, 
but I’m sure we’ve done a great deal more for her 
than most people would have done. I shall always 
be pleased to see her whenever she likes to come, 
but I quite see it won’t do to let it get into a settled 
arrangement again. I always felt it was hard on 
Enid, when she lived here before she was married, 
and now it’s dreadful to see her looking so ill and 
going about in those shabby clothes. Even Mrs. 
Willson remarked on it.” 

“Well, we’ve had her here for two months, and 
no one can say we haven’t done what we could for 
her. But two months is long enough and it’s time 
there was a change. She’s never in time for pray¬ 
ers, and she’s got a way of looking at things I 
don’t like. So you just put it to her so that she 
understands.” 

Mr. Morland thrust his clean handkerchief into 
his pocket and stamped out of the room. 

His wife stayed behind, collecting odds and ends 
of clothing and putting them together. She moved 
about quietly and methodically, looking at each but¬ 
ton in turn and giving it a little tug. Then she 
straightened the row of photographs of herself and 
her children and grandchildren, on the dressing- 
table, and finally picking up one of the ivory-backed 

55 


Monte FeUs 

brushes noticed that it would soon need fresh bris¬ 
tles. She carried it through into her bedroom, put¬ 
ting it on her table where she would be sure to see 
it and remember to take it with her when she went 
into Hollingham the next day. Then having per¬ 
formed one of the most important duties of her 
life, her brow relaxed and she went downstairs. 

She was very glad indeed her husband felt as 
she did about Rachel. She was his niece, not hers, 
which might have made it awkward if it had looked 
too much as if she, Mrs. Morland, were trying to 
get rid of her. But he had relieved her of all re¬ 
sponsibility by saying most definitely exactly what 
she wanted him to say. 

More than one thing had happened during the day 
to make it imperative the girl should go. In the 
morning she had met Mrs. Willson who had first 
made some tiresome interfering suggestions about 
the wedding and then asked after Edward in a very 
queer way, as if she didn’t believe Mrs. Morland 
was speaking the truth. At which Mrs. Morland 
had lost her temper a little, and said rather hur¬ 
riedly that there was nothing out of the way in a 
nervous breakdown. And Mrs. Willson had also 
lost a little of hers, and replied that of course there 
wasn’t, and that she had always said it wasn’t true 
56 


/ 


Monte Felts 

that the Cassilis were separated. Mrs. Morland 
hardly knew how she got away from her. She had 
been obliged to go into the confectioner’s and ask 
for a glass of water. Never, never had she thought 
of people saying that. It almost seemed as if it 
was no use trying to keep things quiet, if they were 
positively going to invent. She had been all the 
more upset by it as she could say nothing about it to 
her husband. He didn’t like Mrs. Willson at the 
best of times, and it wouldn’t do to have any dis- 
agreeables just before the wedding. No, Rachel 
must go, and as soon as possible; if she stayed on 
here they would all be involved in some horrible 
scandal. 

Meanwhile Rachel had returned from the Home 
in a frame of mind she had not known for many a 
long day. She brushed her pale hair till it shone, 
and arranged it in a new way. A distaste for the 
well-worn black dress that lay on the bed sent her 
to the wardrobe in search of a misty blue-grey 
chiffon, the last piece of finery she had bought in 
the days when she still wore such things. Her 
pearls, too, why not wear them sometimes? They 
would lose their colour if she didn’t. She lifted 
them from their case, and let their round milky 
shapes run through her fingers. They had been 

'57 


Monte Felis 


her mother’s, and had had nothing to do with Ed¬ 
ward. Her uncle had said she had better sell 
them, and she had almost acquiesced. It might be 
sensible, but then she had so few good things. 
Edward had never been in the habit of giving her 
presents—she was thankful for that—and it had not 
occurred to her to buy such things for herself. 
After all she didn’t want the money so very badly, 
and if she went anywhere. . . . Suddenly it struck 
her that she was counting on a time coming when 
she would again care what she looked like. Her 
face clouded over and she blushed painfully. 

No, that sort of thing was all over and done with, 
even the very little she had ever had. For on look¬ 
ing back at her life it did not strike her that it had 
ever been particularly joyous. A few dances at 
Crampton partnered by speechless young men with 
sticky hands. A few dinners in London when, if 
she had been a success, Edward had complained that 
she talked too much, and if she were silent that she 
did nothing to help him. And now her youth gone, 
her looks gone—well, very nearly—she was face to 
face with a future in which she must play the 
anomalous part of a perfectly respectable woman 
who was neither married nor single. An uncom¬ 
fortable problem to her family and to society in 

58 


Monte Felis 

general, there seemed no place for her any more 
than there was any proper designation. 

With the blue dress half-way over her head, she 
stopped and took it off again. But something in 
the deepest fibres of her being rose in rebellion 
against the black. A current of new life was work¬ 
ing its way feebly but very definitely through her 
veins. After all, was it really all so hopeless? It 
was something that she could still be helpful to 
people—the men at the hospital, for instance. Cap¬ 
tain Bannister had asked her to come to him first 
and stay as long as she could, obviously because 
he liked her company. She blushed again, but this 
time like a happy girl, as she remembered the coax¬ 
ing inflection of his voice, and the way he had al¬ 
most clung to her hand—like a little child. That 
was how she thought of him—a little child, years 
younger than herself, of course. She must try and 
think of something fresh to amuse him to-morrow. 

As she fastened the blue dress, she hummed a 
gay little tune. 

“My dear Rachel,” exclaimed her aunt at sight 
of her. “You surely didn’t think it was going to 
be a party? Your black would have done perfectly 
well.” 

“I’m sorry,” began Rachel, her little flicker of 

59 


Monte Felis 


cheerfulness quenched. “I thought you thought the 
black was too shabby.” 

“That must have cost a fearful price,” put in 
Enid. “We’re not used to such splendours here. 
Of course, in the country people don’t consider it 
very good style.” 

“I had it long ago, and I thought I might as well 
wear it sometimes,” Rachel apologized. 

Enid threw all the incredulity she could produce 
into her face and voice, as she remarked: “Well, 
I must say it doesn’t look like it. It’s quite in the 
fashion for anyone who isn’t a girl. I should take 
care of it if I were you. You can wear it at the 
dinner before the wedding. It’s quite smart 
enough.” 

She was cut short by the entrance of Violet, a 
duplicate of Enid—slightly tarnished by eight years’ 
matrimony—and her husband. 

“Goodness me, Rachel,” she exclaimed before 
she was well inside the door. “This is splendour. 
You might all have warned me and then I should 
have put on something smarter, not of course that 
I could have hoped to compete.” 

Behind her back her husband grinned timidly at 
Rachel. He would have liked to say something 
nice, but knew better. 

60 


Monte Felis 

The brakes of Tom’s car drew Enid into the hall, 
whence the parlourmaid had discreetly vanished. 
She was lurking behind the passage door, exchang¬ 
ing pleasantries with the housemaid, until she heard 
them go into the drawing-room, and could follow 
at a decent interval to announce dinner. 

At the table, the conversation was mainly sup¬ 
ported by the master of the house and the two 
younger men on the semi-sacred topic of business. 
None of the Morland women would have inter¬ 
rupted their males in the act of speech. Soon these 
high matters would be exhausted, and then as there 
would be nothing else for the men to talk about, 
their turn would come for children and servants. 

Tom Willson was the first to drop out. He had 
been watching Rachel in some surprise. Why, she 
was quite pretty; not his style, of course, he liked 
some one with more “go” in them, but she was 
pretty all the same. Funny he’d never noticed it 
before. 

“Rachel looks better,” he said in a low voice to 
his betrothed. 

“There’s nothing in the world the matter with 
her except nerves,” snapped Enid. “She’s well 
enough to go hanging about the officers in the 
Home all day. It’s only when I ask her to come 

6 l 


Monte Felts 


and do anything with me that these headaches come 
on.” 

“They say there are quite a lot of men there,” 
said Tom, vaguely aware that he had tripped. 
“Might go and look them up one of these days.” 

“At the Home? You’d better ask Rachel about 
it. I don’t go there now the war’s over. As long 
as there was any real nursing to be done, I did it, 
but now I’ve no time to waste pottering about con¬ 
valescents. Besides, I shouldn’t think you’d like it.” 

Tom managed to rise to the height of the im¬ 
plied rebuke, and then relapsed into silence. They 
all met so frequently and had such a paucity of 
interests, that even the engaged couple could not 
keep up a sustained flow of talk. 

At dessert, the ladies ate three grapes and two 
chocolates apiece and then rose and left the room. 
Rachel shot an envious glance at the stairs, as they 
crossed the hall. Could she make her escape? But 
it would mean explanations and excuses and rea¬ 
sons. If they would only let her alone and take 
no notice of her. Her still weak nerves were all 
ajar like the strings of a piano when the lid has 
been slammed. The silly fuss about her dress, 
and then Enid’s remarks about the hospital, which 
the latter seemed to take care she should hear, 
62 


Monte Felis 

had made her tingle with an absurd irritation. As 
soon as she reached the drawing-room she took up 
some work and carried it off to a chair under a 
lamp, away from the others who were gathered 
round the fire. 

‘‘And so Enid and I have decided to go to Bux¬ 
ton on the 4th, so as to give the servants a good 
rest before the wedding/' she presently heard her 
aunt say, in a raised artificial voice. “I wanted 
your father to come, too, but he says he can’t get 
away, so he will stay at the club in Hollingham, 
and join us for the week-ends." 

Rachel began to listen more attentively. It was 
a habit of Mrs. Morland’s to spring awkward an¬ 
nouncements on the persons most concerned thus 
obliquely, and when supported by a numerous com¬ 
pany, so that discussion or protest were almost im¬ 
possible. 

“What will Rachel do?” inquired Violet, ob¬ 
viously recognizing a cue. 

Mrs. Morland turned half round in her chair. 

“By the way, Rachel dear, I never asked you 
where you meant to go ?” Her voice was even 
shriller and she smiled very brightly, looking a little 
flushed. 

So this was her conge, thought Rachel. The 

63 


Monte Felis 


dress was probably the last straw. She felt a cer¬ 
tain elation as if a door were being unlocked. 

“I shall probably go to London, or ... I may 
go to Paris.” She spoke on a sudden impulse, born 
of an overpowering desire to get out of England, 
away from everything and everybody who had been 
in any way connected with the last ten years. A 
hundred happy memories, a hundred dear familiar 
places stretched out their arms to her. The high- 
pitched voices, the subtle all-pervading smell of 
burning charcoal, mixed with roasting coffee. . . . 
The blue spires in the late afternoon sky, the yellow 
lights twinkling along the misty river. . . . Her 
eyes smarted, and her throat ached with longing. 

'‘Paris!” exclaimed Mrs. Morland, getting still 
pinker. ‘‘I don’t think Uncle John would think that 
wise. Besides, you know, you will be coming to us 
for the wedding, for a fortnight, I hope, that’s the 
26th to the 9th, I think. It wouldn’t do for you 
to go so far away.” 

“If I go there, I shall stay there,” began Rachel 
with some heat. She seemed about to say some¬ 
thing more, but changed her mind. She had sud¬ 
denly remembered that leaving Crampton meant 
leaving the hospital; without it life looked blanker 
and emptier than ever. 

64 


Monte Felis 


Mrs. Morland hurriedly flew the better-say-no- 
more-at-present signal, and her daughters, who were 
sitting with mouths agape, plunged into a loud dis¬ 
cussion on the rival merits of fire-grates. 


65 


Chapter VI 


A 


NIGHT of more thinking than sleeping 
brought Rachel down next morning with 
a splitting headache, and all the look of 


returning youth wiped from her drawn white face. 
The sound of her aunt’s and cousin’s voices rever¬ 
berated through her head, deafening her to the 
sense of what they said, but she was aware that 
Mrs. Morland looked nervous and blinked a good 
deal whenever she turned her head in her niece’s di¬ 
rection. Her manner, too, was ruthlessly cheerful. 

As soon as he had finished breakfast, Mr. Mor¬ 
land rose from the table, but instead of leaving the 
house immediately he called his niece to follow him 
into the morning-room. 

“What’s this I hear about you going to Paris?” 
he demanded as the door closed. 

Rachel dropped on to a low chair, her hands hang¬ 
ing over her knees. 

“It’s cheaper there, you know, with the present 
exchange, and I have friends. . . 


66 


Monte Felis 

Mr. Morland’s face became dangerously suffused, 
and he interrupted her rather loudly. 

“That’s all nonsense. You can’t go living in 
Paris, and you ought to know it without me telling 
you. England’s your country, and I’d like to 
know what you find wrong with it.” 

“As I shall have to more or less earn my own 
living, I thought you would rather I did it some¬ 
where out of sight,” said Rachel plucking up a little 
spirit. 

Her uncle glared at her as if he were uncertain 
whether to waste more time on her or leave her to 
his wife. If she was going to say things like that 
he wasn’t going to argue with her. 

“Don’t be a silly fool,” he blustered. “I’ll hear 
no nonsense about going to Paris, or earning your 
living either. You’ve got to remember whose fam¬ 
ily you belong to. If you get some decent woman 
to share a house with you, you can live perfectly 
well on what you’ve got, if you don’t go wasting 
it on rubbish. And when Edward’s about again, 
take better care of him. That’s all I’ve got to say.” 

He clumped out of the room without waiting for 
a reply. 

She stayed as he had left her, her throbbing 
head in her hands. Oh why had she been such an 

67 


Monte Felis 

idiot as to come back to them? Of course it was 
very good of them to take her in when she had no¬ 
where else to go, and was too numbed and broken 
to shift for herself, but she could no more go on 
trying to fit her life to the mould they cut for it 
than she could put on the boots in which she had 
learnt to walk. Besides it was clear enough that 
they wanted her to go. She must find something 
if she could only think of it. Why hadn’t she 
been made one of these splendid, strong-minded, 
modern women, all fists and elbows, who knew their 
own minds, and took care that other people knew 
them too. One of them would have crushed Uncle 
John with a couple of fierce brave sentences instead 
of tamely accepting his perfectly unwarrantable in¬ 
terference. She must go somewhere as soon as 
she could, if she could only think where. She sup¬ 
posed she owed it to them to respect their preju¬ 
dices so far as to stop in England, but where could 
she go? London was too expensive and she hardly 
knew anywhere else. If only she didn’t feel so 
tired . . . and so lonely. Somehow it seemed to 
her she had been lonely all her life. The slow tears 
gathered and fell on her folded hands, but she dried 
them hastily. Anyhow, she hadn’t let Uncle John 
see her in weak humiliating tears. Probably he 
68 


Monte Felis 

thought her self-willed and strong-minded. It had 
amused her to see that they were sometimes rather 
afraid of her. 

She laughed, and then remembered that she had 
promised to go to the Home early. Perhaps when 
her head was better she would find a way out of 
it all. 

The nurses were hard at work on Christmas 
decorations, assisted by the more able-bodied pa¬ 
tients. Rachel was soon involved in branches of 
evergreen and coils of wire, and for a time forgot 
her own worries in anxious discussions as to how 
to make the best of a rather scanty supply of holly. 
She had been at work for some time when a little 
stir below her caused her to look down from her 
ladder. A very beautiful dark woman was coming 
across the hall with Miss Crosse. In spite of her 
black velvet and furs she reminded Rachel of some 
gorgeous tropical bird. Her great dark eyes were 
so brilliant, the way she had of turning her head on 
her long graceful neck, and her vivid colouring. 
She was talking at the top of a clear ringing voice. 
Asking questions, making comments, as one who 
has never known a doubt of herself or criticism 
from others. Rachel was faintly reminded of an 
occasion when it had fallen to her lot to follow a 

69 


Monte Felis 


royal lady round the stalls at. a bazaar. There had 
been the same vague* amiability in the questions 
she put to those about her, and the same lofty dis¬ 
regard of the murmured replies. Substantial Miss 
Crosse looked quite wilted as she walked up the 
staircase beside her guest. 

All the patients stood agape, and the nurses, 
dropping wire and scissors, clustered round the 
matron for information. It appeared that the lady 
was no other than the famous Mrs. Jack Reval, 
Captain Bannister’s sister. She had come down 
to-day to meet a famous eye-specialist, who had been 
called in to see her brother. A discussion arose as 
to how far her reputation as a beauty was justified, 
and whether she was much made up. All hoped 
that she would come down soon and let them get a 
better look at her, but she had not reappeared when 
Rachel left to go home for lunch. 

Her aunt and Enid had gone to Hollingham for 
the day, so she was free to eat as little as she chose 
without remark, and to spend what time remained 
on her bed fighting her headache. It occurred to 
her that if his sister was with him, Captain Ban¬ 
nister would hardly want her; at any rate she had 
better not go to him unless he sent for her. Her 
depression deepened. She felt singularly disin- 


Monte Felis 

dined for either letter-writing or bead-work. 

But that afternoon she was destined to do neither, 
for when she reached the hospital she was met al¬ 
most on the door-step by the matron with the an¬ 
nouncement that Mrs. Reval wanted to speak to 
her; would she please go up to Miss Crosse’s sitting- 
room? Startled and mystified, Rachel made her 
way upstairs. 

Mrs. Reval was alone when she entered the room, 
standing by the fireplace with one long slim foot 
on the fender. 

u How very beautiful, but not a bit like him,” 
thought Rachel. 

And Mrs. Reval: “What a faded piece of gen¬ 
tility! Exactly what we want.” 

She came forward rather gushingly and drew 
Rachel down beside her on the sofa with gentle 
compelling firmness; smiling at her—a dazzling, 
intoxicating smile, which made the other woman 
forget a first impression of hardness. The bright 
eyes were passing face, dress, boots, gloves, in 
rapid review, but the syren lips smiled on, and the 
long curling lashes hid the quick appraising glance. 
Rachel was wearing a close ugly toque, which hid 
her hair, and a badly fitting serge coat, which con¬ 
cealed her figure, and made the tired droop of her 

71 


Monte Felis 


shoulders appear like a permanent stoop. Her 
headache had returned with renewed violence, her 
eyes smarted, and she moved a little on the sofa, 
so that she had her back to the waning light of the 
winter afternoon. 

“You’ve been so good to my brother, Mrs. Cas- 
silis,” Mrs. Reval began, in a voice with a curious 
timbre that made you listen to it whether you 
wanted to or not. “He’s had a rough time, poor 
old darling, and I’m afraid there’s nothing much 
better in front of him. You know the doctors are 
very depressing about his eyes. The beasts threw 
a huge bomb right in among them in a narrow 
street. No one knows how he got out alive. His 
horse was killed and oh, well— horrors! They 
found a splinter which they thought was the trouble, 
but it didn’t seem to make any difference to his 
sight. The man who came down to-day says its 
shock following on overwork and fever, and 
that there’s only a narrow chance he’ll ever see 
again.” 

Rachel gave a gasp of dismayed sympathy. 
Something bright splashed on the dingy serge of 
her knee. 

“They say the only chance is for him to go 
away to a good climate, but somewhere very, very 

7 2 


Monte Felis 


quiet. Sir Henry is all for some seaside place in 
Portugal, that I never heard of. Monte— 

Monte- Something that means the ‘Happy 

Hill.’ ” 

“Monte Felis,” suggested Rachel. 

“Yes, that’s it. Do you know it?” 

“Only by name. My mother was ordered there 
once; but for some reason, which I forget, we went 
to Algebras instead.” 

“That must have been some time ago?” 

“Oh, many, many years, when I was quite a girl.” 
Rachel felt as if most years in her life should count 
ten by the calendar. 

She must be well over forty, Mrs. Reval decided. 

“Well, to return to my poor Maurice,” she re¬ 
sumed. “The doctor insists on this place instead 
of Biarritz, or the Riviera. I urged both, but he 
was quite obstinate about it. He says the whole 
thing lies in keeping him very quiet and yet amused 
and happy—he seems to think he’s highly strung, 
which is all nonsense; he’s not nearly so excitable 
as my other brother. I think myself he wants 
rousing. Perhaps it’s better you should know: a 
brute of a girl he was engaged to had just thrown 
him over, to crown everything else. He won’t 
hear a word against her; shut me up at once when 

73 



Monte Felis 


I said what I thought. But I can see he’s taken it 
awfully hardly. She’s going to marry an Ameri¬ 
can with a perfectly disgusting amount of money; 
but it won’t do her any good here, if we can help 
it.” Mrs. Reval shut her teeth with a vicious little 
snap. Then she changed to her pathetic note again. 
“Well, now you see it all. The poor darling in 
this helpless state, and then so down about that 
wretched girl. I simply can’t send him off to that 
dead-alive place with only a servant, and it’s abso¬ 
lutely impossible for me to go with him myself. 
I’ve just taken a villa at Beaulieu. So in despair I 
come to you.” 

“Me!” exclaimed Rachel, “how can I help you?” 

She had been wondering for the last ten minutes 
whither all this was leading. Now she knew. Her 
heart began to beat quickly, and she was obliged to 
bite her lips to steady them. 

“I had to tell him this afternoon,” went on Mrs. 
Reval, in soft broken tones. “He had no idea his 
recovery wasn’t certain. He said that—nothing 
else. But his voice, you know, utterly broken and 
bewildered, one didn’t have to see his face. It 
made one feel one couldn’t refuse him anything. 
At first I couldn’t get him to talk about this plan at 
all; but I absolutely had to get something settled, 
74 


Monte Felis 


so I asked him if there was anyone he would like 
to take with him as a sort of companion-secretary. 
I thought there might be some man here who would 
do. But he said at once he would rather go alone, 
and then when I told him I couldn’t hear of it, 
and that I must find some one for him, he thought 
of you, and wondered if you could be per¬ 
suaded. . . 

“Me?” echoed Rachel again, but this time as if 
she were questioning herself rather than her com¬ 
panion. 

Mrs. Reval was watching her closely. The 
longer she thought about it the better the plan 
pleased her. Maurice had spoken of her as “a 
Mrs. Cassilis who comes and reads to me. I think 
I could stand her better than anybody else. Not 
really old, you know, but elderly. She talks as if 
she’d finished with life, but she seems able to get 
about all right. She’s not got any home of her 
own—lives with the most godless relations. I 
shouldn’t think she’s very well off.” The woman’s 
clothes certainly didn’t suggest affluence—or co¬ 
quetry. 

Rachel was staring straight in front of her with 
a puzzled frown. 

“I should have to think it over,” she said pres- 

75 


Monte Felis 


ently. She was trying to analyse her own feelings, 
without conspicuous success. 

“Of course we must look at it from a perfectly 
business-like point of view/’ Mrs. Reval began 
again. “I believe there is some recognized salary 
for that sort of secretarial work, which is really 
what it amounts to. . . .” 

Rachel put up her hand, colouring painfully. 

“Oh, I couldn’t take anything, except perhaps my 
expenses. I have a little money of my own.” 

“Perhaps you want to consult your people?” 

“No, I don’t think there is anyone I need con¬ 
sult . . . except myself.” 

There was another long silence, which Mrs. Reval 
was too wise to break. As far as she could, she 
was trying to bring the whole weight of her re¬ 
markable will to bear on Rachel’s hesitating mind. 
Gradually the whole thing began to look to the 
latter more and more like a perfectly simple solu¬ 
tion to her difficulties. She refused to see it in any 
other light. 

“I will go,” she said abruptly, but added in dis¬ 
may, “Oh, but I know nothing of nursing.” 

Mrs. Reval’s brow cleared—as usual she was go¬ 
ing to have her own way. Her manner became less 
caressing and more authoritative. 

76 


Monte Felis 


“That doesn't matter in the least. I’ve got a 
very good man, one of our footmen; he’s not much 
of a valet, but he can do everything Maurice wants. 
By the way, you say you’ve been abroad. Can you 
speak any foreign languages?” 

“French and Italian, and a little Spanish, which 
I believe is rather like Portuguese. My mother 
was an invalid, and we always lived abroad after 
my father’s death.” 

Mrs. Reval rose and held out her hand. 

“That’s quite too lovely,” she said vaguely. “And 
you can start in a fortnight, I hope? Somebody 
will write and tell you everything. Now, go and 
tell Maurice about it. I’m afraid I haven’t time 
to see him again. So pleased. Good- bye.” 

“I must ask you one thing,” Rachel exclaimed 
before Mrs. Reval reached the door. She turned 
rather impatiently. “It is that you won’t say any¬ 
thing about this arrangement to Miss Crosse or 
anybody else here.” 

Mrs. Reval’s carefully pruned eyebrows almost 
disappeared under her hat. 

“Oh dear, no. I probably shan’t be down here 
again,” she replied indifferently. And with another 
nod was gone. 

Rachel found Maurice feverish and restless. 


77 


Monte Felis 


“Well,” he greeted her. “Have you seen 
Patch?” 

“She tells me that you would like me to go with 
you to Monte Felis ... as your secretary . . . 
hope you really feel as if I ... as if you really 
would like me to go?” 

“Then you mean you’re coming?” he asked anx¬ 
iously. “Pm an awful coward, I know,” he stam¬ 
mered; “but I just can’t face going alone or with 
a stranger.” 

His hand, wavering about, had found one of hers, 
and was gripping it, she thought unconsciously. 
Rachel put out her other hand and stroked his. 
All the dormant motherhood in her answering his 
helpless dependence. 

“I know—I know,” she answered gently and 
tenderly—more gently and tenderly than she had 
ever spoken in her life before. 

“I believe you really do,” murmured Maurice. 

They stayed for a long time in silence, he hold¬ 
ing her hand as if it brought him some comfort. 
The room grew dark and the fire burnt down to a 
glowing heap of ashes; but until his fingers relaxed, 
and she knew he was asleep, Rachel did not move. 


78 


Chapter VII 


A FORTNIGHT later found Rachel walk¬ 
ing up and down a platform at Charing 
Cross, waiting for her charge. She had 
not seen Mrs. Reval again, but a long letter of de¬ 
tailed instructions for the journey, worked out by a 
travel agency in concert with a secretary, reposed 
in her bag, together with letters of credit, and every 
variety of recommendation from heads of depart¬ 
ments and foreign embassies. She wondered mildly 
if the Peace Conference itself had given much more 

i 

trouble, and for her own part would have preferred 
to trust to the unbounded good-will of porters and 
railway officials towards the helpless, instead of 
rousing any latent Bolshevism in them by this clat¬ 
ter of big names. However, here they were, and 
apparently going to travel like royalty, or even con¬ 
ference delegates. 

The last week had been spent at a friend’s flat, 
collecting clothes. As she was to have no expenses 
to speak of for the next few months, she had felt 
that she might legitimately treat herself to a proper 

79 


Monte Felis 

outfit, and had gone the round of her old fournis- 
seurs. She told herself that she was keeping her 
dependent position well before her eyes in making 
her choice between blacks and greys and gentle 
mauves, and that there was no reason at all why 
they should be badly made. It surprised her to find 
that she was taking quite a passionate interest in 
them. 

“I really don’t see why you worry so much about 
a little thing like that,” her friend remarked one 
day, when Rachel had tramped half London in 
search of a particular shade of grey silk stockings. 
“The poor man can’t possibly see you.” 

Rachel went scarlet to the roots of her hair, and 
Mrs. Skelton looked at her irresolutely as if there 
was something she would have liked to say if she 
had known how. After a minute or two she asked: 

“I suppose you’re quite committed to these peo¬ 
ple?” 

“Quite,” Rachel had replied with emphasis. 

She took a turn up the platform and came face 
to face with her own reflection in the glass back¬ 
ground of an advertisement. For a fraction of a 
second she looked at herself as a stranger, and then 
with a little rush of self-complacency realized that 
this pretty, well-dressed woman was no other than 
80 


Monte Fehs 

herself. New thoughts, new interests, and above 
all a sense of coming freedom had brought the 
bght back to her eyes, and a faint flush to her cheek. 
Her hair was no longer screwed away anyhow but 
nestled in soft puffs of pale gold under her smart 
blue hat. What could be quieter than dark navy 
blue and black fox ? She seemed to argue with 
some unseen objector. There was nothing to be 
gained by looking like a servant. Anyhow it was 
too late to change anything. She gave a little 
shrug. She had lived too long with the Morlands 
and was contracting their habit of “seeing things” 
in the simplest matters. 

This time to-morrow the inhospitable waters of 
the Channel would roll between her and them, and 
all the horror of poor Edward. Her spirits rose 
and the ghost of a dimple appeared at the corner of 
her mouth as she wondered what the household at 
Crampton would say if they could see her now. 
Without precisely deceiving them about her plans 
she had left a good many details undefined, choos¬ 
ing a moment when her aunt was engaged in com¬ 
puting the servants’ board-wages during her forth¬ 
coming visit to Buxton to tell her that she had heard 
of an invalid, going to spend the winter in Portu¬ 
gal, who was willing to pay her expenses in return 

81 


Monte Felis 

for her companionship. Rather to her surprise 
Mrs. Morland had let the announcement pass with¬ 
out question and almost without comment, except 
to say that it would do very well, and that if Mrs. 
Willson said anything, it would be quite enough to 
tell her that she was travelling with friends. And 
so the matter dropped. Portugal had a dowdy, un¬ 
fashionable sound, not like Rome or the Riviera. 
Two other people had said things which sounded 
as if they were hinting at a separation between the 
Cassilis, and Mrs. Morland was far too anxious to 
get Rachel out of sight to risk raising difficulties 
about the way she went. To her husband she had 
repeated Rachel’s words, and to his question, “All 
quite sound, I suppose?” she replied: “Oh dear, 
yes; very nice people.” And he too had been con¬ 
tent to leave it at that. 

After all, Rachel had frequently told herself she 
was not called upon to give them an account of all 
she did. What was the use of having a fuss, Sup¬ 
posing they took it into their heads to make one, 
which of course would be perfectly unreasonable. 
What she was doing, hundreds of women had done. 
If she had worn a nurse’s uniform, it would have 
been the most natural thing in the world to go 
abroad with this poor man; and if as a nurse, why 
82 


Monte Fehs 


not a secretary? It was only people like the poor 
dear Morlands with their dreadful little country 
town notions who would see anything in it. 

A stir among the porters and passengers at¬ 
tracted her attention to a group of people making 
their way down the platform. First came Mrs. 
Reval, her black eyes turning this way and that, 
evidently in search of somebody. Behind her fol¬ 
lowed a dark, rather florid-looking man, holding 
the arm of a taller, slighter one, who walked stiffly 
with a stick. The upper half of his face was cov¬ 
ered by a black, eyeless mask. Captain Bannister, 
of course. Somehow he looked quite a different 
person now he was up and dressed. Rachel con¬ 
fusedly realized that he was a man about her own 
age. She had never thought of him like that when 
he was in bed. The rest of the procession was com¬ 
posed of porters, a footman, and a man in plain 
clothes, evidently a servant. 

Rachel went forward to meet them with a 
slightly heightened colour. Mrs. Reval on her side, 
looked rather taken aback, but she greeted her with 
her usual off-hand affability. 

“Here’s Mrs. Cassilis, Maurice,” she said over 
her shoulder. “Archie, I want to introduce you 
to Mrs. Cassilis. My brother, Major Bannister. 

S3 


Monte Felis 


Brewster this is Mrs. Cassilis, who is going to take 
care of the Captain.” 

The servant touched his hat, his wooden-toy face 
betraying nothing. Archie, on the contrary, stared 
with ill-concealed astonishment, and considerable 
appreciation. 

“Here, Patch,” he whispered, dragging his sis¬ 
ter on one side, while Rachel was speaking to Mau¬ 
rice, “what to goodness made you think she was 
old? She’s not a day over thirty, and would be 
jolly pretty if she was a bit fatter. I’ll tell old 
Maurice he’d better hurry up and get his eyesight 
back.” 

“Sh . . . sh,” hissed Mrs. Reval. “Maurice 
thinks she’s as old as the hills. He’s going off 
quite happily with her, so for mercy’s sake don’t 
start chipping him. She doesn’t look in the least 
like she did when I saw her. Well, it can't be 
helped now.” 

“I’ve half a mind to see them as far as Paris,” 
began Archie, but Maurice called him. 

Rachel, to show an exact understanding of her 
position, had got into the carriage which had 
been reserved for them, and was helping Brewster 
to arrange rugs and cushions. But almost im¬ 
mediately Maurice was helped in, and lay down with 
84 


Monte Felis 

obvious relief. It was nearly time for the train 
to go. 

“I shall run out and see you before long,” an¬ 
nounced Archie, “and very likely stop a week or 
two.” 

“Not you,” laughed Maurice, “you’d be bored 
stiff in an hour.” 

“I’m not at all sure I should,” returned his 
brother, with a deadly glance at Rachel, which was 
cleverly fielded and suppressed by his sister. She 
shook hands with Rachel, kissed Maurice affection¬ 
ately, commanding him to enjoy himself, and got 
out on to the platform, driving Archie before her. 
The doors were slammed, the train moved off, and 
the first stage of the journey had begun. 

Maurice at first seemed inclined to be talkative. 
He was full of the small adventures of the last few 
days since leaving the Home, declared he had missed 
her very much, and did not forget to ask after 
the Morlands. Brewster presently came in and 
made tea, and after that Rachel read the afternoon 
papers aloud, till seeing that he had gone to sleep, 
she took to looking out on the darkening January 
landscape, and tried to rid herself of a sense of the 
unreality of it all. 

It was dark when they got to Dover. Maurice 

85 


Monte Felis 


woke shivering, in spite of his rugs, all his little 
spurt of animation gone. He could hardly drag him¬ 
self out of the carriage, and went off to bed as soon 
as the hotel was reached, almost without wishing 
her good night. 

The next morning she waited for him in some 
anxiety. At intervals during the night all sorts of 
unforeseen contingencies surged through her brain, 
making her forget her own part in it, in a growing 
realization of the dimensions of her task. “But 
I must get him through. ... I mustn’t fail him, 
he’s got nobody but me/’ she kept repeating to her¬ 
self, till she fell asleep with a dim undefined assur¬ 
ance that somehow or other she would succeed. 

But Maurice’s appearance when he walked out 
of the lift was the reverse of encouraging. He 
moved slowly and weakly, even his voice sounded 
exhausted. Brewster, in a gloomy whisper, in¬ 
formed her that he’d had “a work to get him 
dressed.” With a growing conviction that he 
ought to have had another day’s rest before going 
further she took her place beside him in the cab. 
Fortunately the crossing promised well. 

“Your sister has even arranged a smooth sea for 
you,” she told him. 

“Patch is a wonderful woman, isn’t she?” he re- 


86 


Monte Felis 


turned seriously. Rachel assented. Mrs. Reval 
had certainly effected marvels in the speed in which 
she had got him off her hands. Her influence 
seemed all-pervading, for as they reached the quay, 
officials of every description sprang up along their 
path like genii, all determined to do something, or 
arrange something, or, better still, to alter every¬ 
thing. Maurice began to be more than a little 
worried by it all. 

“I really think Patch has overdone things a bit,” 
he said in a voice tense with irritation when they 
reached the reserved cabin. “I seem to be giving 
an abominable lot of trouble.” 

“The London passengers are just arriving, which 
will absorb their energies for a bit,” replied Rachel 
as she helped him off with his fur coat, and added 
hopefully: “They won’t bother us again for an¬ 
other hour.” 

Rut she had hardly spoken when the purser’s head 
appeared at the window. 

“The King’s Messenger’s inquiring for you, 
sir; shall I ask him to step round?” 

“No,” said Maurice sharply; “tell him I’ll be very 
glad to see him at Calais, and if anybody more 
asks for me you can tell them the same.” 

The purser withdrew crestfallen, and Rachel, 

87 


Monte Felis 


opening The Times, began to read the principal 
items of news. 

At Calais she was thankful that he could not see 
the morbid interest of the crowd, which was more 
or less held back while they walked off the boat. 
But on the platform the difficulties of the high 
French railway carriages confronted them. 

“We shall have to wait for Brewster, I think,” 
began Rachel in an agony to get him into the train 
before he became conscious of the many staring 
eyes. She stopped one of the train officials and 
asked for their reserved compartment. He shrugged 
his shoulders; he knew nothing; didn’t think there 
was one. Compartments were not reserved except 
for “les delegations” or “les couriers.” Then he be¬ 
came filled with indignation as the lady still persisted. 
People who couldn’t travel as ordinary folk shouldn’t 
travel at all. The telegram from the Ministry which 
had seemed equal to commanding a special train in 
England only made him angrier. 

Rachel was despairingly pressing a twenty-franc 
note into his hand, which he received with con¬ 
tempt, when a short, fair man came up. 

“How are you, Bannister? Your sister told me 
to look out for you—Philip Howden, you know. 
T’m doing Messenger. Can I be of any use?” 

88 


Monte Felis 

Maurice turned his head vaguely in the direction 
of the voice. The tremor of his arm told Rachel 
how much it cost him to meet strangers. 

“Sir Philip Howden?” he asked rather stiffly. 
“Thanks very much. There seems to be some mis¬ 
take about the compartment they were to have re¬ 
served for us.” 

“Oh, that’s all right, you can come into mine. 
It’s the one they’re putting the bags into.” He 
looked tentatively at Rachel and seemed about to 
say something more. 

“Captain Bannister would like to get in at once,” 
she interposed in what she hoped was a secretarial 
voice. She edged Maurice towards the carriage, 
as Brewster at last appeared with the hand lug¬ 
gage. The train superintendent who had been 
hanging on their skirts in hopes of driving a better 
bargain departed, shrugging. The other passen¬ 
gers showed a disposition to form a circle round 
them. 

“It’s a honeymoon couple, don’t you see? The 
poor husband must have been wounded in the war,” 
announced one incautious voice. Maurice was for¬ 
tunately being helped up the steep steps and didn’t 
hear. 

After he was settled down, Sir Philip left them to 

89 


Monte Felis 


go and get his own lunch, feeling not a little in¬ 
trigued. Who on earth was she? He remembered 
that Mrs. Reval had said something about “a useful 
old frump” who was going out to look after Maurice. 
Evidently the '‘frump” had failed at the last minute, 
and this woman, whoever she was, had offered to 
see him as far as Paris. And yet, if this was so, 
would Bannister take her so much as a matter of 
course ? 

When he returned to his compartment, he found 
Maurice in the middle of lunch with the woman 
kneeling on the floor beside him putting fork or glass 
into his hand as he needed them. She seemed so 
much absorbed in her task that she did not notice 
his entrance until he spoke. Presently she rose to 
her feet, saying that she had a place in the 
compartment next door, and would come in pres¬ 
ently to see if “Captain Bannister” wanted any¬ 
thing. Maurice let her go without protest or 
comment. 

“A friend of yours, I suppose,” Sir Philip ven¬ 
tured, when Brewster had cleared away the debris 
of the lunch. 

“Who? Mrs. Cassilis?” asked Maurice indif¬ 
ferently. “She’s very kindly coming out with me 
to Portugal. My secretary, Patch calls her, and I 
90 


Monte Felis 


suppose that’s what she is. She reads to me, and 
writes my letters, and keeps Brewster up to his job. 
I say, didn’t I introduce you to her? How beastly 
rude of me!” 

At Amiens Rachel came in to see if he would have 
some coffee. She stayed talking easily and natu¬ 
rally to both men, and to a “poilu” who had got the 
coffee for her and was disposed to linger and ex¬ 
change impressions with the happy informality of his 
kind. It struck Maurice that she seemed to know 
exactly how to take him. Only a very well-bred 
woman knew how to talk to her social inferiors, 
especially male ones. It pleased his fastidiousness. 
Again, as when she had talked to the train official, 
he noticed how good her French was. Howden 
seemed disposed to be dashed civil. He was wait¬ 
ing on her hand and foot. 

When the train went on again, Sir Philip was 
urgent that she should stay, but she said that she 
had left her things in the other compartment, and 
unless Captain Bannister wanted her to read to him, 
she would go back. She was beginning to see that 
if she wished to avoid awkwardnesses, she must take 
a very definite line. He was her employer, first 
and last, and there their relations began and 
ended. 


9i 


Monte Felis 


“She’s a dear old thing, isn’t she?” Maurice re¬ 
marked placidly when she had gone. 

Sir Philip stared at him blankly, but was too 
tactful to offer any contradiction, and they drifted 
into other topics. 


Chapter VIII 


A FTER Paris they travelled mostly at night 
to give Maurice the benefit of the sleeping 
cars, with halts of two or three days at a 
time, which he spent in bed, hardly troubling to ask 
where they were. 

At first Rachel feared that his depression was 
growing on him, but then came to the conclusion 
that as he grew more used to her, he ceased to 
make any effort to hide it. It was that that she 
must attack, if she could only cure him of his moral 
hurts his physical ones would cure themselves. So 
she set her teeth and refused to be defeated, even 
when for hours together he would maintain an im¬ 
penetrable brooding silence, from which she could 
extract nothing but occasional monpsyllabic thanks. 
At such times she would find herself hating the un¬ 
known Corisande with a fierce never-forgivingness, 
not for the hurt she had done him, but for her 
power to hurt him at all. 

All the same, in spite of appearing to take very 
little notice of her, there was no doubt that on the 

93 


Monte Felis 

whole he liked to have her with him. If she went 
out, she must tell him exactly when she would be 
back, and if she was longer than she had said, 
Brewster was invariably sent to look for her. 

At length the journey came to an end one starlit 
evening, too late to gather more than a confused 
impression of soft dark air, scented with flowering 
laurel, and somewhere away in the darkness, the 
rhythmic splash of the sea. Then a gaunt, white 
hotel, bare and clean, if devoid of all conventional 
luxury, but promising a degree of modest comfort. 

Rachel went to bed in a spirit of profound thank¬ 
fulness that they had got so far so well, and more 
confident than usual of an equally serene future. 

The next morning she went down early to send 
off a telegram to Mrs. Reval, announcing their safe 
arrival. Brewster reported that his master had had 
an excellent night, and was altogether much better 
than might have been expected. He was even talk¬ 
ing about getting up before lunch. 

Her wire dispatched, she went out into the little 
hotel garden. It was very small but very sunny. 
Everywhere roses and heliotrope fought each other 
for a hold on the walls. Below them the flower¬ 
beds were purple, with giant violets, clustering round 
the trenches dug at the roots of the tangerine trees. 

94 


Monte Felis 

Rachel picked some of the latter’s long pointed 
leaves, crushing them in her hand as she had so often 
done at Grasse when she was a child. As she sniffed 
them the last twelve years rolled away like an evil¬ 
looking cloud, and she found herself young again 
and all agog for the thrilling adventure of life. 

She asked a gardener, who was watering, if she 
might pick some heliotrope, and was pleased to find 
he understood her rustic Spanish, or at least the 
intention of it, for he forthwith produced a large 
open knife from his trouser pocket, and proceeded 
to slash right and left among the flowers. It was 
with some difficulty that she stopped him clearing 
half the garden. 

One by one other people, apparently visitors, be¬ 
gan to appear. They were all English as far as she 
could judge, and of the pattern which seems to have 
become indelibly stamped on the brains of French 
novelists to the exclusion of any other. “La vieille 
fille,” flat of chest and long toothed, “La jeune 
Miss,” fresh coloured and untidy, and “Le clergy¬ 
man,” the embodiment of innocent vacuity. They 
stared at Rachel with reserved hostility mingled 
with a kind of grudging curiosity, as she stood 
looking out across the blue bay, her arms full of 
flowers, and the sun playing among her fair curls. 

95 


Monte Felis 


There was an air of fragile elegance about her 
which gave an expensive look to her plain grey skirt 
and white blouse. Who was she ? There had been 
rumours for some days past of the coming of a 
“milord inglez,” but as none of the hotel could speak 
a word of English, except the porter and one of the 
waiters, who at best could only be relied on for set 
answers to set questions, no one had come to any 
very clear understanding as to who he was, or how 
many people he had with him. Perhaps this was 
his daughter, or if a young man, his wife. 

The clergyman at length extracted himself from 
a palsied wicker chair, and wandered down the 
path towards her. 

“Er—lovely view,” he ventured. “May I ask if 
you’re making a long stay here?” 

“Bother,” thought Rachel, but aloud she restricted 
herself to a brief affirmative and turned towards the 
hotel. “Perhaps if Pm thoroughly disagreeable I 
can keep them off,” she reflected as she went in¬ 
doors. 

She found Maurice, with a window towards the 
sea wide open, and the whole room bathed in sun¬ 
light. He was sitting up in bed talking cheerfully 
to Brewster. She held out the flowers to him and 
he began to amuse himself by trying to identify 
96 


Monte Felis 

0 

their scents. Rachel waited for the usual reaction, 
but it did not come. Instead he persisted in his in¬ 
tention of getting up, and she went to see if the 
sitting-room was ready. 

In writing for accommodation at the Grand Hotel 
Lusitania, a comfortable private sitting-room had 
been ordered and promised, but when she inquired 
for it she was met by a string of evasions and equiv¬ 
ocations in the manager’s best pidgin French. It 
ultimately transpired that he had never for one 
moment supposed that they would persist in such a 
senseless demand when they saw the large and 
splendid salon, always full of people, where the 
senhor could smoke and play cards all day. Also 
there was the verandah, whence one could admire 
the view of the road past the hotel, and all the auto¬ 
mobiles going up and down. When people weren’t 
actually in bed and asleep, they wanted to be seeing 
and conversing with their fellow-creatures. Many 
of the visitors this year were English, and of the 
best families, he added persuasively. 

But Rachel was adamant. He must produce the 
promised room or they would move to another hotel. 

More arguments; if the senhora chose to expose 
the senhor to the horrors, zoological and culinary— 
he declined to say where, but she could ask anybody 

97 


Monte Felts 


else—of course he had no more to say. He then 
proceeded to say a good deal, but quite suddenly 
threw up his arms and announced with a beaming 
smile that he only lived to humour his clients, and 
that if she would pay the full board of the hypo¬ 
thetical person who might otherwise have occupied 
the room, as well as its rent when transformed, she 
could have number twenty. 

He opened the door of a small bedroom next her 
own, and said he would have it cleared at once. 

Could this really be done at once ? Instantly, 
without a moment’s delay. He would give the 
order himself. 

Half an hour passed while Rachel sat on the bed 
and waited. Then she rang the bell, and on the ap¬ 
pearance of a chambermaid, looking like a badly 
stuffed flock mattress set on end, asked her to carry 
some of the smaller things into the passage. 

The girl remarked “Jesus,” after staring vaguely 
at Rachel’s hair, and slithered away in her heelless 
slippers. Rachel groaned and set to work to tug 
at the dressing-table and round iron washstand. 
She had just succeeded in getting the latter into the 
passage, when a heated valet de chambre rushed up 
and snatched it from her. Behind him came the 
chambermaid who took up a neutral position on the 

9 s 


Monte Felis 

other side of the passage, giggling. In vain Rachel 
did her best to explain, her Spanish coming out 
more and more Italian. Manuel made no reply ex¬ 
cept to clear his throat resoundingly and spit out of 
the window. Evidently, in his opinion, the matter 
was closed. He picked up his dust-pan and brush 
again and was departing down the passage with 
the chambermaid ambling in his wake, when the 
head of the manager rose cautiously above the turn 
of the stairs. It instantly sank again when he saw 
that Rachel was still there, but she dashed after 
him. Were they or were they not to have the 
sitting-room that day? If not, she would move 
to the “Portugal^’ after lunch. The sitting-room? 
He seemed to search his memory. To be sure they 
should have it that day, if they really wanted it. 
If he had understood that she wanted it at once, it 
should have been all ready long ago. He changed 
his tone and began to rave violently at both servants, 
muttering to himself between-whiles. A scene of 
confused and violent activity ensued, reminding 
Rachel of an amateur fire-brigade salving the prop¬ 
erty of someone against whom it nourishes a well- 
developed spite. Bed, chairs, dressing-table, and 
wardrobe, were successively hurled into the passage, 
to be met by a stream of waiters in neglige, with a 

99 


Monte Felts 

collection of oddments from the public sitting-rooms 
on their backs. 

At last came a knock on the door of her bedroom 
where she had taken refuge and the voice of the 
manager announcing in honeyed tones that all was 
ready. 

Rachel entered her new domain, as a victorious 
general might march into a surrendered fortress 
after a long and seemingly hopeless siege. It was 
certainly bare enough of all superfluous luxuries. 
In the centre of the oil-cloth covered floor, stood a 
round table, with a green table-cloth, enriched by 
a design of sunflowers laid on in yellow flannel. Six 
small angular chairs stood round it, upholstered in 
a drab material of a ghostly Gothic pattern, dimmed 
by years of dust and sun, and further adorned by 
a row of plush balls, for the most part conspicuous 
by their absence. Against one wall stood a massive 
card-table, suggesting a small altar in size and 
weight, and against the other a little black table, on 
to which every pattern of the chip-carver’s manual 
seemed to have been crowded, together with a super¬ 
imposed arrangement of projecting brass orna¬ 
ments. It was “pau santo,” Manuel informed her 
in a hushed voice. Rachel endeavoured to look 
duly impressed. There was nothing else. Where 
ioo 



4 < 
i t «? 


Monte Felis 

was she going to put her invalid? She tried to ex¬ 
plain this to Manuel, who nodded violently and said 
“Si, si.” He beckoned her to follow him down the 
passage, and stopping outside the door of a room, 
placed his eye to the large keyhole. Having satis¬ 
fied himself that the occupant was absent, he knocked 
loudly and walked in. It was a plain, bare room, 
like the others, but under the window stood a small, 
dingy sofa, about four feet long, with a steep up¬ 
ward incline at one end. With the gesture of a 
successful conjurer, he indicated that the last prob¬ 
lem had been solved, while poor Rachel struggled in 
vain with a mirth-provoking vision of Maurice en¬ 
deavouring to dispose his long limbs on and about 
the little sofa’s uneasy frame. Manuel’s engaging 
smile gradually faded, giving place to sulky shrugs, 
as she broke it to him that not only would this not 
do, but that he must bring up one of the cane chairs 
from the garden, which, in his opinion, was not at 
all “bonito,” and even when he had adorned it with 
a crochet antimacassar, completely marred the beauty 
of the sala. He departed to an upper floor, talking 
indignantly to himself. 

Rachel looked about her. At any rate it promised 
peace and quiet. Perhaps, when she had arranged 
the flowers, and put out books and odds and ends, 

IOI 


Monte Felis 


it wouldn’t look so like a convent parlour. After 
another wrestle, this time with the chambermaid, 
she obtained some jars and bowls of quaint rough 
pottery, quite the most attractive things the country 
had so far offered them. She was just finishing her 
last vases, when Maurice appeared at the door. He 
made her take him all round the little room, telling 
him which each piece of furniture was, so that with 
a little practice, he could find his way about without 
assistance. After skinning first one ankle, and then 
the other, on the “pau santo” table, he hit on the 
brilliant idea of keeping a vase of heliotrope on it, 
which, as it was the strongest scented of the flowers, 
would serve as a danger signal. He was more 
amused and animated than Rachel had ever seen him, 
and not till he had successfully accomplished his 
round three times, without knocking anything over, 
would he consent to go to his chair. 

Their troubles, however, were not at an end. 
Brewster, who had gone down to hurry the appear¬ 
ance of lunch, returned with a flushed face, and the 
grudging admission that he could make nothing of 
their “ ’eathen talk.” He added that it was evidently 
market day, and that when he had laid hold of a 
tray, with a view to helping himself, the head 
waiter had “raved fit to bust.” 


102 


Monte Felis 


There was nothing for it but for Rachel to go 
herself. At the door of the “salle a manger” she 
was met by thick fumes of tobacco-smoke, mingled 
with wine, through which she dimly descried a roar- 
ing, gobbling multitude of black-coated gentlemen, 
laughing, shouting, eating voraciously. From the 
plates piled with orange peel, it was evident that they 
were nearing the end of their repast. They sat 
awry upon their chairs, their waistcoats negligently 
unbuttoned, while they cordially toasted each other, 
glass in one hand and a deftly wielded toothpick in 
the other. Here and there in frigid isolation, like 
icebergs protruding from a tempestuous sea, sat little 
groups of English trying to appear unconscious of 
the uproar, save when they commented, none too 
discreetly, on the manners of their fellow-guests. 
There was little hope of extracting anything from 
the perspiring waiters, who shot to and fro among 
the tables, so with despair in her heart, Rachel 
went in search of the manager again. She found 
him in a little cupboard off the hall, napkin under 
chin, lunching with an incredibly stout wife and two 
equally incredibly thin children. The whole family 
were full of mixed French, Spanish, and Portuguese 
sympathy—“El pobre senor . . aveugle, n’est-ce pas? 
coitado.” 


103 


Monte Felis 


“Yes, yes,” said Rachel, “but his lunch, poor man.” 
His lunch! Of course, had the senhora spoken to 
the head waiter? She had only to say that the 
senhor wished to lunch, and it would be ready. But 
it had been ordered for half-past twelve, and it was 
now a quarter-past one. Quite so, quite so; for the 
moment they were rather busy. The senhora would 
understand. A political group had honoured their 
hotel by coming there to celebrate a recent 
triumph. . . . Senhor Gonqalves was cut short by a 
deputation from the said group, who insisted that he 
should join them in their last bottle of port. Rachel 
wondered if Mrs. Reval herself could have managed 
these people. There was nothing for it, but to 
fetch Brewster, and together to seize food, plates, 
and glasses. It had, at last, the desired effect of 
rousing the head water to the situation, and he 
came himself, explaining jauntily that to-morrow 
milord’s lunch should be served at any moment he 
chose to order it. 

They found Maurice inclined to be eloquent. His 
French was all the more impressive from the Hin¬ 
dustani which kept cropping up in it. His eyeless 
mask, too, seemed to petrify the waiter. All his 
effervescence left him. He would attend to it him¬ 
self; the senhor should never have cause for com- 
104 


Monte Yelis 


plaint again—never, never, never. His voice 
threatened to trail away in tears. Rachel registered 
a private vow that in future she would leave reproof 
and complaints to Maurice—he could be extraor¬ 
dinarily impressive; besides it roused him and did 
him good. 

Fortunately, now the food had come, it was ex¬ 
cellent, and she went down to her lunch fairly happy. 
On the doorstep the politicals were embracing Sen- 
hor Gonqalves, each other, and anyone else who 
came within arm’s length. They were about to 
depart in a fleet of motors, whose engines had been 
left running the whole time their patrons had been 
in the hotel, and now moved off, their unmuzzled 
exhausts making enough noise to render a Zeppelin 
inaudible. Only the residents, who had lunched 
later, were left in the dining-room. At one table sat 
a faded-looking woman, with what Mr. Shaw has 
taught us to recognize as an Earl’s Court accent, 
and a boy of eighteen, obviously her son. He 
seemed an ill-conditioned youth, who contradicted 
or derided every word his mother spoke. Next to 
them came an angular, flat-chested woman, with a 
general air of dyspepsia, and opposite her a rather 
pretty, fresh-looking girl, with untidy hair and sun¬ 
burnt arms. They were talking across the inter- 

105 


Monte Felis 


vening space between their table and that of the 
clergyman. From his moustache, and white eve¬ 
ning tie, under an unclerical flannel collar, Rachel 
judged that the latter belonged to the Evangelical 
school of thought. His wife was rather the taller 
of the two. Two men, with shaggy hair, clad in 
rough tweed, completed the British element. They 
were discussing Russian fiction, and apparently con¬ 
sidered the pronunciation of the names they used 
a matter for private judgment, since they each 
adopted different systems. The only other occu¬ 
pants of the room were obviously Portuguese. A 
stout, middle-aged lady, with cow-like brown eyes, 
who sat silently ruminating, and occasionally div¬ 
ing between her back teeth with a toothpick. From 
time to time she smiled slowly and carefully at 
the young man who was with her, who talked cease¬ 
lessly, with a profusion of gestures. He was 
dressed in grey drill uniform, embellished with 
numberless pockets, and looked smart and well 
turned-out, though to British ideas the effect was 
rather marred by a pair of bright yellow kid but¬ 
toned boots, and the fact that he had postponed shav¬ 
ing till later in the day. He and his mother fixed 
their eyes on Rachel with the steady, unwavering 
gaze of children staring at a wax-work. Presently 
106 


Monte Felis 


they all got up to go—all, that is to say, but 
the clergyman’s wife, who, with a bright “You go 
on, dear,” to her husband, stopped at Rachel’s table. 

“I m afraid you had some little difficulty just be¬ 
fore lunch,” she began, in a tone of parochial cor¬ 
diality. “You must come to us, you know, if you 
have any trouble. I speak French, and Gongalves 
will always do anything for us. My husband, Dr. 
Philbeach, is chaplain here, so I look on it as my 
place to mother all new-comers.” She laughed arti¬ 
ficially. Rachel was beginning a brief acknowl¬ 
edgment of her kind intentions, but she was cut 
short. 

“Now you must just tell me what the little matter 
was, and I know I shall be able to put it right. 
These people mean very well, but they haven’t 
any method. Still, as I always say, you must be 
patient with them. Foreigners are never practical, 
are they? But I love them, so I don’t mind their 
little ways. I’m not a bit the conventional Eng¬ 
lishwoman. My friends tell me I’m a regular Bo¬ 
hemian, and I suppose that is how I come to under¬ 
stand them. But, of course, to those who haven’t 
been abroad before, I’m sure they must all seem very 
odd.” 

“Thank you,” said Rachel, for the second time. 

107 


Monte Felis 


“It was only about some lunch I wanted to have 
taken upstairs, but our own servant will do it in 
future.” 

Mrs. Philbeach beamed more brightly than ever. 

“Now, don’t you see, that’s just where I come in. 
You must come with me at once to Senhor Gongalves, 
and tell me what it is that you want him to do, and 
I will tell him.” 

“Thank you; I have already spoken to him.” 

“Ah, but he doesn’t understand any English. I 
tell him I shall have to teach him, now that they 
have so many English visitors. It’s so inconvenient 
for him; I can’t think what would happen if I 
weren’t here. You had some fuss about a room this 
morning, too, didn’t you? Now, if you had only 
come to me, I could have explained to you that it 
isn’t the custom to have private sitting-rooms here. 
When we come abroad, we English have to shake 
off our unsociable ways! Of course, it is just what 
I love, but then that’s me—I simply adore humanity, 
I can’t have too much of it. Come, and we’ll go 
and put this little matter straight with Goncalves. 
I can tell you, if I go with you, there will be noth¬ 
ing he won’t do for you. They all chaff me about 
it!” 

“You are very kind, but he seems to understand 
108 


Monte Felis 


French, and as his wife is Spanish, she can trans¬ 
late . . 

“Spanish! Now don’t go and tell me you are 
Spanish, with that fair hair.” 

“I won’t,” said Rachel, with a smile. “And now, 
if you’ll excuse me, I think I must go.” 

“Well, don’t forget to come to me the next time 
you’re in any little difficulty. And I hope you’ll 
join the choir in our little church. You needn’t 
mind if you haven’t much voice. It’s all very sim¬ 
ple you know, but what we aim at is brightness. 
And—er Mr. Bannister too; I’m sure he would like 
to come down and hear the singing. It’s such a 
pleasure to the blind, as, alas! Gonsalves tells me 
he is. Is he your father?” 

“No,” said Rachel edging towards the door, “he 
isn’t.” 

“Well, I shall come and look you up one of these 
days and try my hand at cheering him. My friends 
tell me they can’t be dull when I’m there.” Mrs. 
Philbeach waved a cordial hand laden with bangles. 

“I thought you were never coming back,” Mau¬ 
rice greeted her. She told him what had been hap¬ 
pening. To her surprise he did not seem as ap¬ 
palled as she was at the idea of Mrs. Philbeach’s 
proffered friendship. 

109 


Monte Felis 

“After all,” he said, “it will be dull for you with 
only me. We’d better have her up to tea one day, 
and the padre too. What’s he like?” 

“Ga-ga,” replied Rachel shortly. She was se¬ 
cretly and unreasoningly hurt that he should sug¬ 
gest that they wanted anybody’s company but their 
own. 


110 


Chapter IX 

F OR the first few days Maurice remained 
more or less invisible to his fellow-guests, 
but towards the end of a week he elected 
to go for a drive, and a carriage was ordered for 
half-past two. It was an hour when the English 
mail usually came in, and a good many people were 
standing about the hall as he crossed it holding Ra¬ 
chel’s arm. The latter was painfully conscious of 
various excited faces, including Dr. Philbeach’s. 
“What’s the hurry?” asked Maurice, artlessly. 
“Some one may take the cab.” 

“That’s all right, Brewster’s there, isn’t he? If 
I fall down it will be longer in the end. Lord! 
That was a peck.” He had stumbled over a hole in 
a piece of matting. Rachel remorsefully clutched 
him closer, and Dr. Philbeach hurried forward with 
a “Do take my arm, sir. These foreigners don’t 
understand furnishing. There should be a good 
carpet here, not these miserable strips of stuff. 
Most dangerous. We are sorry not to have seen 
you before. My wife has been making Mrs. 


in 


Monte Felis 

Bannister’s acquaintance—mind the step—gently 
does it.” 

Rachel’s face was flaming. 

“Will you need both rugs, do you think, Captain 
Bannister?” she asked. 

“Rugs? No, not both—unless you think you 
may be cold, Mrs. Cassilis,” he answered, mimick¬ 
ing her. Rachel to her surprise saw that he was 
laughing. The clergyman’s face looked blank 
astonishment. 

“Silly old ass thinks you’re my mother,” laughed 
Maurice, as they drove off. “Why did you give it 
away? And by the way, I wish you’d call me 
Maurice, everybody does. Let’s pretend you’re my 
aunt; I never had one who was kind to me before. 
Tell me, Aunty, what are we passing now?” 

“You’ll find there’s a seamy side to most aunts 
if you involve us with the Philbeachs. They’re 
impossible people.” 

Mothers ? Aunts ? What on earth did he mean ? 
For one long bewildered moment Rachel struggled 
with conjecture, and then the truth broke in on 
her. A truth so incredible, so—so ridiculous that 
it was all she could do not to break into wild, hys¬ 
terical laughter. Maurice must think that she was 
a middle-aged woman, perhaps quite old. This was 


112 


Monte Felis 


the explanation of his deference to her opinions, 
his fears lest she should overtire herself. His in¬ 
nocent notion that she would enjoy the society of 
her contemporaries in the persons of the chaplain 
and his wife. But how in the world had he come by 
such an idea? Was it her general tiredness and 
flatness when he had first known her? But why 
hadn’t Mrs. Reval told him ? She must have 
thought very much the same. At the time Rachel 
had to admit she had more or less deliberately made 
a fright of herself. She had looked extremely ill, 
and like most fair women illness aged her. Be¬ 
sides, in the Reval-Bannister world nobody looked 
their own ages. She had been astonished to hear 
that Mrs. Reval who seemed about twenty-eight 
was close on forty. Perhaps it wasn’t surprising 
that she had taken Rachel for her elder by six or 
seven years. 

But how about Maurice? Ought she to tell him? 
Suppose he didn’t like the idea of the look of trav¬ 
elling about with a woman of her age, and well, if 
it came to that, appearance? And yet what was to 
be done? She couldn’t leave him alone here, with 
Brewster, so why worry him about what couldn’t 
be helped? 

The carriage had turned inland, and was pro- 

113 


Monte Felis 


gressing at a gentle jog across a wide plain, stretch¬ 
ing in undulations to the foot of a jagged range 
of mountains. No habitations, no trees, save a 
row of stunted olives along the side of the road, 
bent almost double by the perpetual north wind. 
On all sides lay the dark red earth, littered with 
grey stones and low growing scrub. Here and 
there were clumps of purple iris, and once, when 
they passed a sheet of white narcissus, Rachel got 
out and gathered handfuls. There seemed no liv¬ 
ing creature anywhere, except the herds of thin 
brown sheep, cropping such tufts of grass as they 
could find, the bells round their necks making a 
gentle, melancholy tinkle. Once or twice they 
passed an ox-cart, creaking along on wheels of solid 
wood, and drawn by gentle looking, wide-horned 
oxen, whose guardian was generally peacefully asleep 
in the cart, but who would wake from time to time 
to administer a prod and give vent to a long, in¬ 
human wail. Every sound, every scent, Rachel 
did her best to interpret, devoting all her mind 
to the task, to the exclusion of other thoughts. 
Maurice listened absorbed. 

“One could put it all to music, if one knew how,” 
he said, half to himself. 

A wonderful peace seemed all round them, in 
114 


Monte Felis 


which the only jarring note was the restless anima¬ 
tion of the driver. He sat, for the most pdrt, 
screwed round facing his passengers, only glancing 
carelessly over his shoulder at the horses when one 
of them had stumbled rather worse than usual. 
Finding the senhora could speak to him in Spanish, 
he concluded that for once conversation would be 
an easy matter with the Inglezes. On the slightest 
encouragement he poured forth numberless com¬ 
ments and questions. As usual, beginning with the 
“pobre senhor, coitado.” How had he been hurt? 
Where had it happened? Would he get better? 
Poor thing. The lively little eyes, so like a mar¬ 
moset’s, softened and swam with sympathy. Every 
day he would come himself and fetch the senhor 
for a drive—every day a different drive. Monte 
Felis was but a poor place in winter; the senhora 
should have come in summer, when it was so full 
that there was no room at all. Thousands of 
motors, and so much dust that it was impossible to 
see the horses’ heads. Almost every day an acci¬ 
dent. He put the reins under his foot, to have 
both hands free to demonstrate his meaning, and 
convey something of the brilliancy of the scene. 
Now there was almost no one except the Inglezes, 
who, praise God, were coming back again. They 

1 15 



Monte Felis 

didn’t take many carriages, to be sure, but they 
paid well when they did. Before the Revolution— 
that is to say, the first of all the Revolutions—there 
had been many English, but after that no one had 
cared to come to Portugal. They were afraid. It 
was a pity. Then there had been the war. The 
war, in his opinion, had been a piece of folly. A 
cousin of his had been there and had come home 
without a thumb. The said cousin reported great 
violence on the part of the Austrians. 

“Austrians?” queried Rachel. 

“Yes, very tall men, fighting among the Eng¬ 
lish.” 

“Australians?” she suggested. 

“Si, si, exactly,” it was the same thing. The 
Germans were certainly very bad people. They had 
attacked the Portuguese, though they had promised 
they would not do so, and if it had not been for the 
heroism of the latter, the English and French would 
have been swept into the sea. He himself had a 
very good notion of what war was like, not only 
from his cousin’s account, but because he had be¬ 
come accidentally involved in the Revolution of De¬ 
cember the 7th. A bomb had been thrown in the 
street he was running down, three large windows 
had suffered severely, and a splinter of glass had 
116 


Monte Felis 

lodged itself in his nose. As he leant over to show 
the traces of the injury, the carriage stopped with 
a jerk. One of the horses had at last fallen down, 
and lay so still that Rachel at first thought it was 
dead. It transpired, however, that it was unin¬ 
jured, but that it was its habit to snatch such re¬ 
pose as could be extracted from these incidents. Its 
companion drooped over it, evidently meditating a 
similar collapse. The driver, who had narrowly 
escaped overbalancing into the cab, sat staring at 
them reproachfully. “And then?” he inquired. As 
the horses offered no reply, he ejaculated “Aie— 
Aie!” and clambered off the box. He began haul¬ 
ing away at the bridle of the fallen horse. It at 
once came off in his hand and the weary head sank 
back once more into its former position, while the 
driver staggered against a small wall which oppor¬ 
tunely intervened. He held the broken parts of 
the throat-lash together, as if he expected them to 
join up. As nothing of the kind happened, he re¬ 
marked, rapidly but without animosity: “A thou¬ 
sand thunderbolts split you, mule of the devil!” 
and dived into a receptacle under the box seat, from 
which he extracted numerous short lengths of 
string. By the time repairs were effected, it was 
too late to go further, and they had to return to the 

ii 7 


Monte Felis 


hotel. There was no one about when they arrived, 
and they went upstairs in happy ignorance of the 
swarm of comment which was buzzing round their 
names. 

Their carriage had not turned the corner of the 
hotel before the room inhabited by the chaplain 
and his wife was alive with rumour. Mrs. Phil- 
beach was lying on her bed, with her eyes closed, 
one foot, so to speak, already raised to take the 
step across the borderline which divides dozing from 
genuine slumber, when her husband’s form sud¬ 
denly surged up at her bedside. She sat up in some 
excitement. A telegram from home announcing 
the death of some member of the family from in¬ 
fluenza, she instantly surmised. His brain was as 
active as her husband’s was the reverse, and she was 
already deciding which of her coats and skirts would 
best dye black, before he spoke. 

“I—er—I,” he began. 

“Yes, yes, is it Aunt Julia?” his wife demanded 
impatiently. Aunt Julia, after all, was a childless 
widow. 

“Aunt Julia? Now I wonder what made your 
mind fly to Aunt Julia, my dear? Curious, very 
curious, you know, that it should. Shows there is 
after all something in this idea of telepathy, or 
118 


Monte Felis 

thought-transference. Pou will hardly believe me, 
but only last night I dreamt of Aunt Julia as we 
saw her last, driving in her little pony carriage at 
Tunbridge Wells, I remember. . . .” 

“Yes, yes,” said his wife, still more impatiently, 
“but that wasn’t what you came to tell me.” 

“No, my dear, quite true, it wasn’t. But you must 
admit the coincidence was very curious. My dream¬ 
ing of Aunt Julia last night and your thinking of 
her like that this afternoon, when we have neither 
of us had any very recent news of her.” 

“Then if it isn’t Aunt Julia who is dead, who is 
it?” 

“Dead, my dear? Indeed, I hope nobody. The 
fact that we should both have thought of Aunt Julia 
surely need not mean that anything unfortunate has 
happened to her. I am surprised, dear, that you 
should suggest it. You know how strongly I feel 
about these foolish superstitions. . . .” 

As a rule Mrs. Philbeach’s patience lasted longer 
with her husband than with anybody else, but there 
was a limit beyond which even he could not go. 
She now interrupted him firmly and decisively: 
“Herbert, tell me at once what it was you were go¬ 
ing to say when you came into this room.” 

Dr. Philbeach blinked, and thought hard. 

119 


Monte Felis 


“It was—let me see—oh, yes, about that young 
couple, the Bannisters, or rather, not a couple, as 
it now seems.” 

“Not a couple? My dear Herbert, I never said 
anything about a couple. I told you that I spoke 
to that fair woman who is here with the blind man. 
I suppose he is her brother, as she said it wasn’t her 
father. Do you mean he is her husband ?” 

“No—at least, yes; for the matter of that, I 
should think not.” 

“You had better sit down and tell me exactly who 
you have seen and what they said, and what you 
said,” Mrs. Philbeach told him, firmly. She low¬ 
ered her own feet to the floor, sitting very upright 
on the edge of the bed. Dr. Philbeach sat down 
beside her and obediently began at the begin¬ 
ning. Unconsciously he drifted into the tone he 
adopted when introducing narrative matter into 
his sermons. 

“I was standing in the hall, just now, waiting 
for the afternoon letters, when my attention was 
drawn to a tall, dark young man, the upper part of 
whose face was concealed by a black shade or mask. 
He was led by the arm by the young woman who 
sits near us at meals, and who, you informed me, 
was called Bannister. As they came towards me, 


120 



Monte Felis 


the young man tripped on that piece of matting 
which is curled up at the edge, and I at once went 
forward to offer my arm. I took the occasion to 
say a few civil words about not having seen them 
when we called, and also to mention that you had 
already made Mrs. Bannister’s acquaintance, for I 
saw at once that the lady could hardly be his daugh¬ 
ter or niece. What was my astonishment to ob¬ 
serve that she seemed extremely embarrassed, and 
immediately afterwards addressed her companion as 
'Captain Bannister,’ while he in turn apostrophized 
her as Mrs. Cassilis.” 

Dr. Philbeach turned to enjoy his wife’s amaze¬ 
ment, and found her looking quite as red and ex¬ 
cited as he had hoped. "Humph!” she remarked. 
"No wonder she didn’t seem anxious to tell me 
who she was with. You must speak to Gongalves, 
Herbert.” 

"Speak to Gongalves, Alicia? What has it to do 
with him? Besides, what can we say? We only 
know that Captain Bannister is not this Mrs. Cas¬ 
silis’ father, as you supposed. . . 

"I never did anything of the kind. Gongalves 
was perfectly clear that they were not husband and 
wife, and so I naturally concluded that the man, 
whoever he was, must be her brother or her father. 

121 


Monte Felis 


All the luggage labels on their boxes are ‘Ban¬ 
nister.’ You can see them yourself, if you go 
along the first floor corridor.” 

Dr. Philbeach fixed his eyes on the fly-blown elec¬ 
tric-light bulb, and began to intone “A great 
change has come over the world. This terrible 
war, which has been the scourge of so many thou¬ 
sand lives. . . 

“Yes, yes, Herbert, I know what you are going 
to say. People do very queer things nowadays. 
But you and I are here to give the tone to the Eng¬ 
lish in this place—we cannot hope to control the 
foreign element (by which she meant the native), 
though our example may do much, and at least we 
can show by our own attitude that—that—well, we 
don’t approve of that sort of thing. I shall speak 
to Miss Simmonds and Mrs. Pringle.’’ 

Mrs. Philbeach stood up and looked about for 
her shoes. As she did so, she noticed a hole in the 
toe of one of her black cotton stockings. There 
would have been time to change it before tea, but 
she decided that, as only a very untoward accident 
would be likely to betray its presence, it was not 
worth the trouble. Instead, she smoothed her hair 
very neatly and put on two more bangles, and asked 
her husband if he were ready. Dr. Philbeach still 


122 


Monte Felis 

sat on the bed, looking rather frightened and 
crumpled. He devoutly hoped his wife was not go- 
ing to drive him into one of those nasty fusses like 
the one they had had at Montrueil, which had nearly 
landed them in a libel action. He was sorry now 
he had told her anything, though she was bound to 
have ferreted it out for herself sooner or later. 

“After all,” he said weakly, grasping at a straw, 
“she may be his nurse.” 

“Nurse!” snorted Mrs. Philbeach. “With those 
pearls! Do try to be a man of the world, 
Herbert!” 

It was the amiable and pleasant custom for the 
Philbeaches, Mrs. Pringle and Percy, and Miss 
Simmonds with her young friend, Daisy Carter, 
to join forces every afternoon at half-past four 
round the tea-table. It was then that new arrivals 
were discussed, and collections of shells and wild 
flowers compared. This afternoon the first sight of 
Mrs. Philbeach was enough to inform the rest of 
the group that something new was in the wind. 
She talked carelessly and rapidly on indifferent sub¬ 
jects, while Dr. Philbeach sat by in silence, inde¬ 
cision and apprehension written on every feature. 
At length the tea-trays appeared, and after a skilful 
manoeuvre, which put Daisy and Percy at a table 

123 


Monte Felis 


by themselves, the three elder ladies drew their 
chairs together. Mrs. Philbeach cleared her throat, 
shook her bangles, and proceeded to relate what her 
husband had told her. 

“Bannister, did you say?” queried Miss Sim- 
monds, abruptly. 

“Yes, Bannister. The name is up on the board 
on the wall against 18, 19, 20, and 21—those rooms 
at the end of the passage on the first floor. As I 
came along just now I saw the manservant bring 
out a tin case from number 19, with ‘Captain M. L. 
Bannister, X’s Horse,’ painted on it in white let¬ 
ters.” 

“Humph,” croaked Miss Simmonds in a voice 
like a hen-turkey. “Now nothing you say surprises 
me. Such a nice girl, the niece of our Dean, was 
engaged to him last summer, but it was broken off, 
because she couldn’t stand his ways, I gathered. 
The Deanery people don’t at all approve of the 
smart set.” 

“I’ve heard a great deal about the Bannisters 
from a lady who is a great friend of mine,” twit¬ 
tered Mrs. Pringle, who lived in a refined society in 
a southern suburb, and talked elegantly of serviettes 
and fiances and the upper ten, “She told me that 
Mrs. Jack Reval—that’s the sister, you know—is 
124 


Monte Felis 

the fastest woman in London, and that the brother, 
who is something in the Grenadiers, is always mixed 
up in some divorce case.” 

She paused, rustling with reprehension and 
chronic bronchitis. Mrs. Philbeach assumed the 
air of one whom no new phase of human iniquity 
can surprise. 

“Of course all those sort of people are like that,” 
she announced largely. “As soon as I knew what 
class he belonged to I knew what to expect. Rotten, 
every one of them, and that’s what nearly lost us 
the war. I’m thankful Fve managed to avoid 
knowing any of them up to now.” 

Miss Simmonds, who’s father had been an Arch¬ 
deacon, looked affronted, and Mrs. Pringle hastened 
to justify her friend. 

“Of course, Mrs. Wildman, the lady I spoke of, 
is obliged to know them through her husband at¬ 
tending so many of the aristocracy. She doesn’t 
at all care for that sort of thing herself, I can assure 
you. Only she’s very much sought after in May- 
fair, quite a favourite, and always dressed in the 
most perfect taste. It’s everything for his practice, 
I tell her husband. Of course that’s why she does 
it; but she doesn’t care for them, not she. She 
tells them some fine home truths, and doesn’t care 

125 


Monte Felis 


what she says. Why she told me herself that she 
said to the Countess of . . 

“Give me some money, mother, I’m out of cigs.,” 
interrupted the speaker’s offspring. 

Mrs. Pringle dived nervously among the con¬ 
tents of an overcrowded little bag. 

“You smoke too much, Percy, you know you 
do,” she ventured. “You know what Dr. Philbeach 
said.” 

Percy looked as if he had his own opinion of Dr. 
Philbeach and would have liked to voice it if that 
gentleman’s wife had not nailed him with her eye. 

“If people would only follow plain Church teach¬ 
ing that’s what I always say,” she began ponder¬ 
ously. 

“The Anglican Church, I grant you,” snapped 
Miss Simmonds, staring straight at Dr. Philbeach’s 
unkempt moustache. “It’s all this flirting with Dis¬ 
sent that’s done the harm.” 

Mrs. Pringle looked as frightened as if she had 
witnessed an actual embrace, and the party dis¬ 
solved in strident silence. 


126 


Chapter X 


O NCE on the upward grade, Maurice gained 
strength daily. His depression gradually 
but steadily evaporated, and as Rachel 
came to know him better she realized how foreign 
to his nature it had been. 

The blow Corisande had dealt him had seemed at 
the time a heavier one than his initial injury; but 
it is truer than we most of us care to confess, that 
we are never quite as happy or as unhappy as we 
think we are. With all his sensitive soul he had 
adored her beauty, and the vision of it had haunted 
the long months after he left her. But all the 
while at the back of his dreams, as he was now 
forced to realize, there had been something missing. 
More than one incident of the fortnight they had 
spent together, and after that little things that 
cropped up in her letters, would sometimes shout 
aloud that very common clay lay behind those deep 
blue eyes. She was only a child, he had told him¬ 
self angrily. Once get her away from that fool of 
a mother, and she would be utterly different. And 

127 


Monte Felis 


so he had held on blindly till her last letter came, 
and the old tormenting voice had roared in his 
ears that he had been a fool all along. But for the 
time being that was no help. In his weakened phys¬ 
ical state he ceased to think or reason; only the 
sense of loss remained, and for long dark hours at 
a stretch he had lain crushed by the intolerable 
longing to see her face again. 

It was only lately, strangely enough since he had 
come to know this Mrs. Cassilis better, that he had 
realized what the total absence of all real compan¬ 
ionship between two people living together might 
mean. How those diversities of feeling that had 
seemed no more than tiny stings would in time have 
grown into festering wounds. No, beauty only 
carried you half the way; you didn’t need to see a 
person to be able to get on with them. 

This Mrs. Cassilis, now, it was perfectly extraor¬ 
dinary how she always seemed to be in the same 
mood he was, instead of exactly the opposite as 
most people were. And then—well you could tell 
her things. He found himself talking to her as he 
had never talked to anyone in his life. Why he 
had even admitted that he had at times attempted to 
write poetry, and instead of laughing at him, she 
had made him repeat a line or two and seemed to 
128 



Monte Felis 


like them—or pretended she did. But somehow he 
didn’t think there was much pretence about her. 

He had guarded the secret like a crime since the 
black day when Archie had found him out and 
given him a “jolly good hiding.” It had happened 
when he was nine years old, and Archie thirteen. 
He had been down at Greyladies by himself in 
quarantine after measles, and had spent his time 
pottering about the neglected garden, or sitting be¬ 
fore the kitchen fire, listening to the housekeeper’s 
endless legends about the house, till one day coming 
across a pencil and a piece of paper, both at the same 
time he had been moved to write a little poem about 
the ladies in grey and the grey carp in their fish 
pond. Afterwards he had lost the piece of paper, 
and in the excitement of his brother and sister’s 
arrival, had forgotten all about it. Then, as ill- 
luck would have it, a day or two later Archie had 
found it, and after a tremendous lecture on effemi¬ 
nacy in general, had pronounced his sentence and 
proceeded to carry it into execution. 

“Of course in a way I suppose he was right,” 
Maurice had added, and then laughed at Rachel’s 
passionate: 

“The brute!” and a funny little choke in her 
voice. He had never known any one so tender- 

129 


Monte Felis 


hearted. She didn’t seem to have any children. 
What a pity. She was just the sort of person 
you’d love to have for a mother. 

The days slipped by in peaceful monotony. Soon 
Maurice could walk as far as the pine woods, and 
they fell into the habit of spending the morning 
there, rather than on the more frequented beach. 
Not that they had to complain of any excessive 
friendliness on the part of their compatriots—even 
the Philbeaches restricted themselves to a distant 
good morning, and Mrs. Pringle rushed past them 
as if they bore the visible signs of plague. For a 
day or two Rachel wondered what was the matter, 
and then forgot all about them and everybody else 
except herself and Maurice. 

She had even ceased to think of his strange mis¬ 
take about her age, except when some little thing 
came up to remind her. She really meant to en¬ 
lighten him, she kept telling herself, but she let one 
chance after another go by, and when the time came 
it took her as much by surprise as it did Maurice. 

One morning, when a drifting sea mist had kept 
them indoors, something in a newspaper set him 
talking about the South African War. He tried 
to remember the date of the Battle of Paardeberg, 
and appealed to Rachel. 

130 


Monte Felis 


“I’m afraid I’m rather hazy about it,” she con¬ 
fessed. “We were in Paris most of the time; my 
mother was in a clinique, and I was in a pension 
entirely among French people, and so didn’t hear 
much.’’ 

“That must have been pretty beastly. Were they 
horrid to you?” 

“About the war? Oh dear, no. I remember oc¬ 
casional cries of Wive les Boers!’ but I fancy most 
of the worst kind of abuse was confined to the 
Press. You see, I was only eight at the time, and 
French people are always good to children.” 

“Only eight!” exclaimed Maurice. 

Rachel saw her mistake, but it was too late to 
retrieve it. “Yes”—she tried to speak in a matter- 
of-fact tone—“eight the November of ’99.” Her 
heart was beating violently, and her colour was 
coming and going. Maurice’s colour had risen 
too. 

“Then—then you're only thirty now. Two years 
younger than I am.” 

Rachel began to laugh, not very naturally. “How 
good you are at arithmetic. Why shouldn’t I 
be ?” 

Maurice got redder. “I’ve been the most awful 
fool, you know,” he said, uncomfortably. . “I—I 

131 


Monte Felis 


imagined you were, well, forty-five to fifty. In 
fact, Patch said you were. Of course, Fve some¬ 
times thought, especially lately, that you were aw¬ 
fully young and jolly for your age.” 

Rachel went on laughing hysterically. 

“Oh dear, oh dear, how very funny!” 

But Maurice still didn’t smile. Presently he heard 
her go out of the room. One by one things recurred 
to him which he had hardly noticed at the time. 
One day when he had put his hand on her arm, 
he remembered that it had struck him how firm and 
round and soft it was. And another time when 
she was reading aloud a letter from Archie, who 
invariably forgot that other eyes than Maurice’s 
would see it, she had stumbled over something that 
sounded like “pretty secretaries are all the rage, so 
you’re not the only one,” which she boggled over 
as if the writing was not clear, and then had 
turned it into something quite different. And her 
laugh. What a double-dyed idiot he had been. 
And Patch, too, if it came to that. He could only 
suppose she had been so keen to get him off her 
hands with anybody that she hadn’t taken proper 
stock of Mrs. Cassilis. Probably she had looked 
pretty cheap with living with those relations. He 
himself had gone by her dull toneless voice, and 
132 


Monte Felis 

slow tired movements, when he had first known 
her. By Jove, there was a difference in her now. 
You didn’t have to see her to know it. Looking 
back on his misty recollections of her at Crampton, 
it was difficult to believe she was the same person. 

Well, there it was; and after all what was there 
to get excited about? They had lived up to now 
perfectly comfortably, why not go on exactly the 
same? She obviously didn’t mind it, she was much 
too sensible. The old nonsense about roping off 
one sex from the other, as if they were wolves and 
lambs, had surely been done away with by the war. 
She was just the joiliest friend he had ever had, and 
he hoped—he was sure—that she felt just the same 
about him. Besides, what on earth would become 
of him without her? He took out a cigarette, but 
found his match-box was empty, and, getting up, 
began to wander about the room in search of an¬ 
other. Twice he stumbled against chairs, and once 
upset something containing liquid. He could hear 
it dripping on the linoleum, and hoped it wasn’t 
ink. He called Brewster, but got no reply. Why 
had Mrs. Cassilis gone away like that ? She always 
told him when she was going away, and looked to 
see that everything he wanted was within reach. 
He called Brewster again, without result. 


133 


Monte Felis 


A horrible sense of his own helplessness seized 
him. Suppose he should always be like this? Al¬ 
ways at the mercy of servants. Brewster was a 
good little fellow, but, as his master very well knew, 
would be slack enough if Mrs. Cassilis were not 
always after him. Suppose she got sick of the job 
and went away? Patch had only talked about en¬ 
gaging her for a few months. And after that? 
He might, of course, be able to see by then, though 
he hadn’t much hope of it himself. In that case 
there would be no need to have anyone to write his 
letters and read to him, or to tell Brewster about 
things; but it wasn’t only that Mrs. Cassilis did. 
Suddenly, he felt that life without Mrs. Cassilis 
would be emptied of a good many things. 

The shock of the last discovery drove him to his 
feet again. Where the devil were those matches? 
This time he found them by knocking them off the 
table, and banged his forehead violently in trying to 
pick them up. The door opened, and Rachel came 
in just as it happened. She ran to him, exclaiming: 
“Oh, what are you trying to do?”—just as if it 
were not all her fault. 

Maurice assumed an air of extreme pathos. 

“I found myself all alone,” he said, “and then, 
when I tried to find the matches, I upset something. 
134 


Monte Felis 


I could hear it dripping on the floor, but I couldn’t 
do anything. I say, don’t go away from me 
again.” 

“I won’t,” said Rachel in a low voice as she 
staunched the tears of ink that bedewed the face 
of one of the yellow flannel sunflowers. 

Nothing more was said about her age and out¬ 
wardly, at any rate, their life pursued its normal 
course. 

One day in the following week, as they were 
having tea, Maurice began to complain that his 
meals came at all sorts of hours, and were more 
often than not half cold. Complaints only did any 
good for about a couple of days. In future, he an¬ 
nounced, he should lunch and dine downstairs. 
Brewster was to get out his dress-clothes—a 
smoker. The day had been wet, and he wanted a 
change. 

Rachel concluded that he was getting over his 
dislike of exhibiting his disabilities, and welcomed 
it accordingly, only wondering why he thought it 
necessary to give so many reasons. It would be 
much more fun having him down to meals, instead 
of eating a solitary dinner with a book propped up 
against the water-bottle. In honour of the occa¬ 
sion she put on a grey dress which she had not 

*35 


Monte Ftlis 


worn, and pinned a spray of heliotrope in the front. 

She found Maurice waiting for her when she 
went into the sitting-room. “I say, isn’t this fun?” 
he exclaimed. “You must take my arm to-night. 
I wonder what you are wearing. Something very 
smart, I can tell by the feel. It’s chiffon, isn’t it? 
Or is it georgette ? Archie would know for certain. 
I wonder what colour it is—no, don’t tell me, I’ll 
guess. You’re wearing heliotrope, so it must be 
either mauve or grey.” 

He rattled on all through dinner. Rachel had 
never seen him so gay. All went swimmingly. 
Brewster, who had arrived at some sort of modus 
vivendi with the head waiter, brought him his food 
ready cut up, and then took his stand behind his 
chair, deftly whisking glasses out of the way of 
disaster. 

Maurice’s appearance naturally caused a small 
stir among the other diners, which did not decrease 
as dinner progressed, and the couple were observed 
to laugh and talk with an animation and interest in 
each other, more suggestive of a casual encounter 
than the termination of a whole day boxed up to¬ 
gether in a small sitting-room. By the time they 
finished dinner, the other guests had grouped them¬ 
selves round tables in the salon, and settled down to 
136 


Monte Felis 


cards or newspapers. Rachel was conscious of a 
cold wind of hostility blowing from the English 
quarter of the room. She suggested having their 
coffee upstairs, but Maurice seemed possessed by 
an insatiable thirst for dissipation and elected to 
have it among his kind. So there was no help for 
it, and as long as their fellow-countrywomen con¬ 
tented themselves with looking disagreeable, noth¬ 
ing much would come of it. 

The waiter had put their coffee on a table near 
the stout Portuguese lady, Madame Fonseca, and 
her soldier son. Through an interchange of cour¬ 
tesies about a chair, Maurice got into conversation 
with the latter. Madame knew no English, and 
though she professed a knowledge of French, 
seemed to have little to offer Rachel except slow 
smiles, and swayings of her head. Tenente Fon¬ 
seca, however, more than atoned for his mother’s 
lack of small talk. He began the usual inquiries 
as to how Maurice had been injured. 

“Got mixed up with a bomb,” the latter told him 
shortly. 

“A revolution, of course. You ’ave them too in 
England? I did not know.” 

“No, India; only a potty little riot.” 

Tenente Fonseca clicked his tongue in the roof 

137 


Monte Felis 

of his mouth, and shook his head much as his 
mother did. 

“ ’Ard lines,” he finally brought out in triumph, 
staring at Maurice’s mask as if he were trying to 
discern some hidden horridness. 

“Oh, it’s nothing much,” said Maurice hastily. 
“What are you in, cavalry? I’m ashamed to say 
I know nothing of your Army. I wasn’t in France 
during the end part of the war.” 

“Nor I either. My mother she say it is bad for 
’er ’ealth. She ask our medicine. 'E say ’e sign 
a paper saying I am too weak. So I go not. You 
see,” he lowered his voice, “we are Monarchist. I 
draw not my spade for this Republic.” 

The little warrior drew himself up and jerked 
down the front of his tunic, but his auditor re¬ 
mained more mystified than impressed. 

“Your—I beg your pardon.” 

“My espada, epee, you know. You ’ave not in 
your army, no?” 

“Yes, yes,” said Maurice, “of course, how stupid 
of me. What’s the matter with the Republic?” 

Tenente Fonseca spread out his hands in an all- 
embracing sweep. 

“Is 'orrible this Republic,” he pronounced with 
gloomy finality. 

138 


Monte Felis 


Maurice felt unequal to a political discussion, so 
he said hurriedly: 

“The country seems all right. It’s a perfect cli¬ 
mate; this is the first really bad day we’ve had since 
we came. And the people we meet about here are 
most awfully nice. They’ll go to any sort of trouble 
if you ask them a question.” 

The bright black eyes, so like a monkey’s in their 
quickness and timidity, sparkled with pleasure. 

“You like Portugal, yes? Is a beautiful coun¬ 
tree.” 

“Well, I do. I like it immensely, the little I 
know of it.” 

Rachel became aware that Brewster was making 
agitated signals to her through the glass door, and 
crossed the room to speak to him. 

“Is very well, your wife,” remarked Fonseca, 
cordially. “Is charmingly pretty.” 

Maurice started slightly. 

“Oh, er, Mrs. Cassilis, I suppose you mean? 
She’s my secretary.’’ 

There was a heavy pause, while the other regis¬ 
tered yet one more proof of the unblushing hypoc¬ 
risy of the English. He shrugged his shoulders 
and smiled the smile of a man of the world. 

“You need not fear my mother will ’ear. She 

139 


Monte Felis 


does not understand us/’ he whispered encourag¬ 
ingly. “She comes with you on the journey? You 
meet her in London? Ah, London.” He rolled 
his eyes, overpowered by the potency of his remi¬ 
niscences. “London,” he exclaimed lyrically, “that 
is the place. There was a little girl I met with 
once in London. . . 

But Maurice was not listening. For the last 
week he had been a prey to an increasing desire to 
know what Rachel looked like. So Fonseca 
thought her “char-ming-ly pretty.” The devil he 
did! Perhaps it was his idea of being civil, but 
he had certainly spoken with a good deal of con¬ 
viction. Dash it all, it was no business of his. 
It was evidently high time that he, Maurice, got 
about more and looked after her a bit, instead of 
leaving her among all these bounders who probably 
hadn’t seen a lady before. He could hear her talk¬ 
ing to some man now—not Dr. Philbeach. The 
man, whoever he was, had stopped her on her 
way back to him. When they got upstairs again he 
would just make her tell him if she had had any 
bother already. What was the idiot saying to her 
now? Something about “reading to Captain Ban¬ 
nister?” No, hang it all that was a bit too thick. 
He was unpleasantly reminded of scenes he had 


140 


Monte Felis 

witnessed on P. and O. liners, when he had seen 
young children skilfully made use of as an introduc¬ 
tion to their pretty mother’s good graces. Damn it, 
he would not play the obliging baby. 

Rachel was beside him now, introducing a Mr. 
Whittaker, who was offering to lend them books. 
He had heard Mrs. Cassilis reading aloud on the 
sands, might he sometimes take her place? Well, 
at any rate, he hoped he might come round some 
evening and bring some of his books. He did a 
certain amount of reviewing, so had many sent 
him. Did Captain Bannister care for the Scan¬ 
dinavian school? No, Captain Bannister did not. 
He thought them all vulgar, affected bores, and was 
afraid it was time to go to bed. He was extremely 
obliged to Mr. Whittaker, but he thought they had 
still got a good deal left of the stock they had 
brought out with them. Good night. 

Rachel had never conceived he could be so un¬ 
gracious, and to make amends asked poor Mr. 
Whittaker to lend his books to her. She, for her 
part, had the greatest admiration for the Scandina¬ 
vians. Had he by chance got Nexo’s latest? He 
had, and it was hers. She should have it to-morrow 
without fail. 

Maurice almost dragged her away. 

141 


Monte Felis 


‘'What on earth made that bounder think we 
wanted him?” he demanded excitedly when they 
reached the sitting-room. 

“He only wanted to be amiable, I think,” raid 
Rachel mildly. “He seems lonely now his friend 
has left. His sciatica is bad, and he can’t get 
about much. It appears he was within earshot the 
other morning when I was reading that book of 
sagas, and so took us for kindred spirits.” 

“Old, is he?” queried Maurice. 

Rachel began to laugh. 

“About as old as you thought I was—fiftyish.” 

Maurice blushed. 

“I say, you needn’t rub it in. It was as much 
Patch’s fault as mine.” 

t 

“Well, anyhow, you needn’t have been so horrid 
to the poor man. Last week you’d have thought 
him a very suitable crony for me.” 

“Well, I don’t now,” said Maurice obstinately. 
“And look here, I want you to tell me if you have 
any trouble with any of these outsiders. I ought 
never to have let you go down to meals alone. 
Lord knows who comes to these sort of places. 
That little Fonseca, now, if he tries any nonsense 
mind you’re to tell me at once.” 

“My dear child, go to bed,” said Rachel mimick- 


142 


Monte Felis 


ing her most elderly manner. “Because I’m not 
fifty, doesn’t mean I’m five. Half my life has 
been spent in foreign hotels, and believe me as far 
as this one goes, it and its inhabitants couldn’t very 
well be duller.” 

“I do wish you’d be serious,” her protector 
groaned. “After all, who have you got to look 
after you if it isn’t me?” 

“Myself,” retorted Rachel. “And here’s Brew¬ 
ster, come to see how much longer you intend to 
continue the evening’s dissipation.” 

“Will you have luncheon served here to-morrow, 
sir?” the man asked. 

“No,” said his master with decision, “in future, 
I shall have all my meals downstairs.” 

Rachel laughed. 


143 


t 


Chapter XI 


I N her room, Rachel stood for a long time 
looking out of the window. The rain had 
ceased some hours earlier, and now, in a star- 
sown sky, the moon sailed high over the quivering, 
shimmering sea. It seemed hardly darker than the 
day. Away to the right round the horn of the 
coast, each little white village lay like a pearl in a 
jade setting of pine trees. Beyond them the light 
at the mouth of the river glowed like a fire-fly. A 
faint night wind crept into the room, bringing a 
burden of scent from the flowering laurels in the 
garden below. 

Rachel drew in a long breath, which was half a 
sob and half a laugh. Was it all the magic of the 
night that even Senhor X.’s marzipan chateau took 
on a measure of romance? If only Maurice could 
see it too, just he and she, and all the rest of the 
world asleep. She leant out a little further and 
looked along to his windows. He was getting 
stronger every day. He would see soon, she was 
sure of it. What a change in him this last week. 
144 



Monte Felis 

No more tamely submitting to her decisions because 
it was too much trouble to argue them—now he 
positively ordered her about. 

Her eyes danced and her dimple came and went, 
as she thought of the incident of poor Mr. Whit¬ 
taker. On looking back at it she was surprised 
that it had not annoyed her. Maurice had really 
behaved very badly, and she supposed she ought to 
have been cross with him. But she wasn’t—no cer¬ 
tainly she wasn’t. 

Away down on the shore the little waves were 
dissolving on the sand with soft splashes. Rachel 
listened and wondered if Maurice could hear them 
too. 

Yes, unquestionably his will power was return¬ 
ing, and then: “When he wanted to see he would 
see,” she had said it a hundred times to herself, 
and more than once in writing to Mrs. Reval. But 
to-night for the first time the full meaning of it 
dawned on her. It might be any day now, and 
then. . . . She drew in her breath quickly with a 
little gasp like pain. Her part would be done then. 
He would have no further use for her. She would 
go away and never see him again. 

“I can’t, I can’t,” she whispered with trembling 
lips as she turned away from the window. “He 

145 


Monte Felis 


can’t do without me—at least not yet.” To-morrow 
was surely hers, and perhaps the next day. 

She presently fell asleep and dreamt that she and 
Maurice were walking through the pine wood, but 
there was an unfamiliarity about it that frightened 
her, and she was filled with a shuddering sense of 
something unseen that was drawing nearer and 
nearer. She became aware that she was not hold¬ 
ing Maurice’s elbow and guiding him as she usually 
did, but that instead his arm was round her, hold¬ 
ing her close. His mask was gone, and yet, strange 
to say, his face as he turned it towards her was per¬ 
fectly familiar. He seemed utterly unconscious of 
the danger that oppressed her, and when she tried to 
warn him, her voice died in her throat. Suddenly 
it came, Edward’s face, with its slack red lips, and 
bright, rather prominent blue eyes, grinning through 
the trees, closer and closer till it almost touched her. 
She woke with a strangled scream in her throat, to 
find the sun streaming into the room, and the stolid 
chambermaid standing beside her holding a tray 
in one hand while she crossed herself with the 
other. 

The nightmare still hung on her as she dressed. 
She had had nothing of the kind since she left Eng¬ 
land—should she never shake off these terrors ? 
146 


Monte Felis 

This dream had been different from the other 
dreams. Before she had always faced Edward 
alone. Recollection sent the hot blood flooding her 
forehead. She bit her lips hard and finished dress¬ 
ing quickly. 

Rather to her relief Maurice was not in the sit¬ 
ting-room. The post lay on the table, and on the 
top of the other letters, the hatefully familiar en¬ 
velope which she knew contained the report from 
the asylum. She had a hazy idea that last month’s 
had never reached her at all, and realized with a 
slight shock that she had never missed it. Well, this 
one could wait. It was always the same. She 
pushed the new one aside and took up Maurice’s 
letters. As she did so he came into the room. 

“Will you have your letters or the papers first?’’ 
she asked, as he dropped limply into his chair. 

“What is there?’’ 

<l The Times, the Field, two business letters and 
one from your sister.” 

Maurice moved his head uneasily against the 
cushion. 

“Shall we go out?’’ she proposed as he did not 
answer. He had not had one of these moods for a 
very long time, and this morning she felt singularly 
unfitted to cope with it. 


147 


Monte Felis 


“I don’t really care if we stay in or go out,” he 
announced. 

“You’ve got a headache, haven’t you? I’ll get 
some eau-de-Cologne.” Maurice made no objec¬ 
tion. He was rarely insensible to a little petting. 

“I couldn’t sleep, I don’t know why,’’ he said 
presently. “I say, would you mind keeping your 
hand just where you’ve got it now?” 

Rachel began to talk a little at random. 

“That little Mrs. Pringle coughs all night. . . . 
I’ll go and see if I can get her to inhale or some¬ 
thing if I hear her again.” 

“Why on earth should you? One of her own 
long-toothed friends can perfectly well look after 
her, instead of dragging you out of bed. Some 
people are so beastly selfish. Don’t move your 
hand.” 

“I don’t think there are any of them on this 
landing except the son, and he certainly wouldn’t 
bestir himself.” 

“I daresay you’d be glad enough of a change 
of jobs. You must be getting pretty sick of noth¬ 
ing but me all day. I was thinking about it last 
night, when I couldn’t sleep. Why not go out for 
a walk with old Whittaker, and leave me in, or 
Brewster can take me.” 

148 


Monte Felis 


“Are you by any chance trying to get rid of me 
on to somebody else?” Rachel tried to laugh with 
tears in her voice. 

“You know perfectly well I don’t mean that, 
it’s only that I can’t help thinking sometimes how 
beastly dull it must be for you. I say, your hand’s 
pretty shaky this morning. . . . Have you got 
a cold?’’ 

“If you can do nothing but talk nonsense, I shall 
read your letters to you and then we will go out,” 
said Rachel desperately. 

“All right, if you insist. Don’t bother to read 
them all through—just tell me anything I ought to 
know. I wish Patch would leave us in peace.” 

Maurice seemed to care less and less for news 
of his family; he took far more interest in such of 
Rachel’s letters as she sometimes read him. 

She ran her eyes over the two business communi¬ 
cations, and told him the contents, neither required 
an answer. Mrs. Reval’s was full of her own do¬ 
ings—the name of a certain Charlesworth, cropping 
up at frequent intervals. “Patch is going to marry 
him when she’s got time,” Maurice had once re¬ 
marked. Then followed a long complaint of Archie, 
who had got himself mixed up with a half-caste 
woman, Brazilian or something of that sort, any- 

149 


Monte Felis 


how, frightfully expensive. Their father was fu¬ 
rious, but Archie seemed perfectly demented. There 
followed a graphic description of the forms his 
dementia was taking. Rachel was wondering if she 
was expected to render these literally, but Maurice 
stopped her at the outset. 

“Let’s get out into the woods,’’ he exclaimed im¬ 
patiently. “Archie’s a damned fool, and if Patch 
can’t keep him out of mischief, at least she needn’t 
inflict his exploits on you. I wish, when you write, 
you’d tell her so from me.” 

They found a sheltered sunny spot and spread a 
rug. Neither had spoken much on the way, and as 
soon as they were settled, Rachel with her back 
against a tree, and Maurice full length on the rug 
beside her, she opened the papers and began to read. 
But she was soon aware that he was not listening 
and thought he had gone to sleep. 

Maurice, however, was far from sleep. He was 
deeply engaged in wondering what sort of a man 
the late Mr. Cassilis had been, and if his wife had 
been very much in love with him. He could never 
remember her mentioning him, which might either 
mean that she had loved him or had hated him so 
deeply that the sound of his name was now unbear¬ 
able. Maurice ungenerously but fervently hoped 

r 5o 


Monte Pelis 

that the latter was the case. He somehow hated 
the idea of the contrary, just as much as he dis¬ 
liked her bothering with old Whittaker, or anybody 
but himself. He was afraid he had hurt her feel¬ 
ings about that, but it would mean she wouldn’t do 
it again. What a beast he’d been, now he came 
to think of it. It was all because he wanted to 
make sure that she wasn’t sick of it and wanted to 
leave him. . . . But that fellow Cassilis, now, it 
was odd she never spoke of him. She talked con¬ 
stantly about her life with her doctor-ridden mother 
and afterward with the Morlands, but about the 
ten years that lay between she maintained the most 
absolute silence, and all he had been able to piece 
together, was that she had lived in London and 
known a great many literary and artistic people. 
Most probably the husband had been killed in the 
war,—very likely a good thing on the whole. He 
seemed to have left her badly off, though she must 
have had money at one time. Probably ran through 
it all, selfish beast, and left her to struggle through 
as best she could. He, Maurice, would see to it that 
she never wanted for anything again. Supposing 
his sight came back, there was simply no question 
of her going to another job. If he went back to 
India, he would persuade her to go to Greyladies and 

I5i 


Monte Felts 

look after it for him. There was really no reason 
why it should be let. He had always hated the idea 
of strangers being there, and on the other hand had 
always felt a sort of link between her and the old 
house. It would be good to come back on leave 
and find her there, instead of going to Watersmeet- 
ing, to be growled at by his father, hustled by 
Archie, and vef^ likely before he knew it, married 
to some one he didn’t want, by Patch. No, he 
would say nothing about it to the others, but would 
quietly install Rachel at Greyladies as caretaker, 
and when he came home they could go on exactly as 
they did here. He would get a dog-cart and a 
good mare, not a beastly motor, and they would 
go for long drives over heaths and through deep 
lanes. 

He felt so happy that he really dozed off at last, 
and began to dream it all over again. He was lying 
under the old apple tree in the orchard, and heard 
Rachel telling him that it was time to wake up and 
go into lunch. In another moment he would open 
his eyes and look up into her face, but he would let 
her speak again because he liked to hear her voice. 
She spoke, and he opened his eyes, but only on the 
blank of everyday. 

The shock was bewildering. He put his hand to 
152 


Monte Yelis 

his head and encountered his mask. It was rather 
like falling out of a tree as he had done once when 
he was little, just as he thought he had found a 
fairy’s nest. 


V 




153 


Chapter XII 


T HEY passed a rather silent day, and for 
once Maurice seemed glad of Fonseca’s 
company after dinner. He was not aware 
as Rachel was, that Madame Fonseca, after staring 
at her stolidly for a minute and a half, gave her 
the briefest possible bow, and turning her broad 
back on her rolled away to the other side of the 
room. Rachel told herself that she was hardened 
to this sort of thing by now. It had begun with the 
English and was now spreading to the Portuguese. 
As long as none of it reached Maurice, she was 
quite indifferent to what they thought. Heavens, 
what was it all compared with leaving him ? 

“Aunt Fanny’s in bed with a temp, so I'm 
going to talk to you,” came a shrill voice behind 
her. 

She turned and saw Daisy Carter, Miss Sim- 
mond’s niece, balancing herself on the edge of a 
table. She was so like a small fat Shetland pony, 
that it seemed something of a feat. 

154 


Monte Fells 


“Do you know that I’ve spoken to you twice, and 
you’ve never heard me?” 

Rachel coloured a little. 

“I was listening to Senhor Fonseca, I suppose.” 
Daisy flopped down on a chair beside her. 

“You call yourself Captain Bannister’s secretary, 
don’t you?’’ she asked, fixing Rachel with a wide- 
eyed stare. 

“I am his secretary,” the other replied with what 
dignity she could muster, painfully conscious of her 
inquisitor’s imperviousness to snubs. 

Daisy laughed good-humouredly. 

“Well, of course, I’m bound to say you don’t look 
like one. You’re much too well dressed, and too— 
what shall I say?—not inky enough. Those old 
tabbies, Mrs. Philbeach and Mrs. Pringle, and of 
course Aunt Fanny the worst, are fearfully in¬ 
trigued about you, but I think you’re perfectly sweet. 
I made up my mind I should talk to you the first 
time I got a chance. I have to be a bit careful 
when Aunt Fanny’s about, because you see she’s 
paying for me being here. I expect they’ll go and 
tell her about it to-morrow, but I shall just say it 
was you who spoke to me. I say, aren’t they ex¬ 
actly like the Mad Hatter and the Dormouse in 
Alicef Mrs. Philbeach with those awful teeth, 


155 


Monte Felis 


and Mrs. Pringle, always mumbling crumbs like 
a rabbit. It’s a blessing to have you to look at. 
Have a choc. ?” 

“You’re very kind.” 

“Well, you see, I’m not their generation, thank 
the Lord, and I don’t see things the way they do. 
I think it’s just splendid of you to come away like 
this with Captain Bannister, now he’s blind. Only 
promise me you won’t spoil it all by going and get¬ 
ting married. A friend of mine says marriage is 
such a cliche. Of course I shall have to be, be¬ 
cause we’re all frightfully churchy, but I don’t care 
about it a bit. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. 
You see I’ve never met anybody > . .” 

“You don’t seem to understand,” interrupted Ra¬ 
chel desperately. Maurice, thank goodness, was 
deep in cavalry tactics. “Captain Bannister’s sister 
engaged me to act as his secretary while he is 
abroad. Please don’t run away with any other 
idea.” 

Daisy surveyed her dubiously, and put another 
chocolate in her mouth, then she nodded intelli¬ 
gently. 

“Of course you have to say that. But you 
see you needn’t mind a bit with me. I haven’t 
any prejudices. I think he’s a perfect darling. 
156 


Monte Felis 

He must be a dream without that mask.” 

“I really don’t know,” said Rachel uncomfort¬ 
ably. “I’ve never seen him without it. I didn’t 
know him before he was hurt.” 

Daisy’s eyes opened their widest, and her mouth 
likewise. 

“What? Do you mean to tell me that you’ve 
never pulled it up a tiny bit to see underneath? / 
should have done ages ago.” 

At this moment Fonseca, unable to ignore his 
mother’s signals of disapproval any longer, took his 
leave, and before Rachel could intervene, Daisy 
slipped into his place, and Mr. Whittaker into hers. 
She could only hope for the best. 

“I’m Daisy Carter,” the girl began. “I say, may 
I take you out one day? I did heaps of nursing 
in the war, and I’ll be ever so careful.” 

Maurice smiled. He didn’t think Mrs. Cassilis 
would let him out of her sight. She was dreadfully 
strict. 

“I shall ask her. I’m sure she won’t mind. . . . 
I’m so sick of nothing but Percy Pringle all day 
long.” 

“I’ve just been talking to her, Mrs. Cassilis, I 
mean,” Daisy continued. “I think she is just the 
sweetest thing in the world, don’t you?” 


157 


Monte Felis 


“She’s very good to me,’’ said Maurice lamely. 

“I think she’s perfectly lovely.” 

Maurice lowered his voice, though he tried to 
speak as if he were only humouring his companion. 

“I wish you’d tell me what she’s like. You see 
I’ve never seen her.” 

“Of course you haven’t. How perfectly sweet. 
I never heard anything so adorable. She’s never 
seen you without that black thing, and you’ve never 
seen her at all. Don’t you know a bit what she’s 
like?” 

“How can I?” 

Daisy tossed her bobbed mane, and shook the box 
of chocolates encouragingly under his nose. 

“Go on eating while I tell you. No? Then I 
will. To begin with she’s tall, and what novelists 
call slender, you know the right kind of thinness, 
and her hair is soft and very, very fair. I should 
think it curls naturally. Then her eyes are big and 
grey, the light sort with dark rims, and her eye¬ 
brows and eyelashes are a good deal darker than her 
hair. Her nose isn’t anything one way or the other, 
it’s just a nose, but her mouth is simply the most 
delicious curly thing you ever saw, with a dimple at 
the corner of it when she laughs. Let me see, what 
have I forgotten? Oh her hands—those long pale 

158 


Monte Felis 


fingers like you see in pictures. Aren’t I a good 
describer ?” 

Maurice said something which sounded like “yes, 
very.” He was looking along a flagged path, bor¬ 
dered with lavender bushes. A tall, fair-haired 
woman was coming down it, towards him. 

Daisy flounced round on her chair. 

“I’ve been telling Captain Bannister what you 
look like,” she said indignantly to Rachel, “and he 
isn’t even listening.” 

“I think he’s tired,” she answered. She leant 
forward, putting her hand on his knee. “Shall we 
go? 

He rose to his feet and took her arm without re¬ 
plying. 

They reached the sitting-room in silence. By the 
door, Maurice who was nearest to it, put out his 
hand, and felt for the electric-light switch. It 
squeaked loudly, but no light came. 

“What’s happened?” he stammered, in an odd 
bewildered voice. “I say, you know something 
has happened.” 

Rachel began to tremble violently. For a mo¬ 
ment she could do nothing but cling to his arm. 
Then with an effort she put her hand into his pocket, 
and taking out his match-box struck a match. 

159 


Monte Felis 


The flame burnt upwards in her shaking fingers. 

Maurice dropped into a chair, his head in his 
hands. 

“I can see,” he said in a low voice. 

As the match went out Rachel burst into tears. 

The moon which had been hidden behind a cloud 
came forth again and poured a flood of silver light 
through the open window, showing Maurice the dim 
outline of the shaking figure beside him. He took 
one of the hands in his, a beautiful hand, as that girl 
had said—and stroked it. 

“Do you care as much as that?” he asked shakily. 

She could only answer by her fingers. For a 
moment he went on stroking her hand, and then he 
stooped and kissed it. Rachel caught it back with 
a faint gasp. 

“Til tell Brewster you want him,” she said, as she 
ran out of the room. 

She waited for a moment outside the door to 
steady herself and then called Brewster. His mas¬ 
ter must on no account leave off his mask, she re¬ 
minded him. The thicknesses of gauze must be re¬ 
moved one by one, or he might overstrain his sight. 
Brewster was much too excited to listen. 

“I wish we'd had his hair cut yesterday,” was 
his first comment. “The barber’d better come first 
160 


Monte Felis 

thing in the morning afore he notices it’s a bit long. 
And I d be obliged if you’d get me another bottle 
of benzine, ma’am, an’ I’ll go over all his coats. 
There’ll be a work with him if he finds any spots 
we’ve overlooked. Very particular gentleman he 
always was.” 

Rachel smiled drearily as she went into her own 
room. 

Brewster, too, saw it mainly from his own point 
of view. . . . Oh, but she was glad, of course she 
was. Wasn’t it what she had longed for and worked 
for all these weeks? 

She looked at the hand Maurice had kissed. . . . 
It didn’t mean anything ... a man might do any¬ 
thing at such a moment. But hadn’t the time come 
when she ought to tell him about Edward? Ought 
she not to have told him long ago ? 

For long hours after she had put out the light, 
she lay sobbing with a silk sock she had been mend¬ 
ing, pressed against her cheek. 

Maurice also lay awake, too profoundly happy 
even to wish for sleep. At first when he had heard 
what his fate might be, he had made up his mind to 
face the worst, and except in those moments of ex¬ 
treme optimism peculiar to people of his tempera- 

161 


Monte Felis 


ment, he had set himself to grow accustomed if not 
resigned to his present life. He would go down to 
Greyladies when he went back to England, and of 
course take Rachel with him. With her help he 
would set about to become as clever as lots’of other 
blind people. It wouldn’t be much of a life for a 
man of his age, but it wouldn’t be unendurable. 
That was to say, if Rachel stayed with him. But 
she would, he was sure she would. He would put 
it to her one of these days. 

But for the last week or so the other alternative 
had presented itself more and more frequently. 
Suppose his sight came back? God! it would be 
good to be with the old regiment again! to see the 
handsome, impassive faces of his troop, with their 
hawk-like noses, and black fan-shaped beards. To 
feel a horse move under him again. . . . To join in 
the rush and scurry of the game he loved the best 
of all. ... With all due modesty, he knew that the 
polo team without him must be a thing of naught. 
Finally to be a man once more among other men, 
not a beggar for small services that a child would 
scorn. 

And yet to-night, when it seemed pretty certain 
that all this was once more his, it was not of the 
regiment or the polo that he thought. If he were 
162 


Monte Felis 

not going to be blind for the rest of his life, what 
about Rachel? It was not customary for junior 
regimental officers to employ secretaries. He re¬ 
membered his plan of asking her to live at Grey- 
ladies. He had been very pleased with it this morn¬ 
ing, but now he discarded it at once. What, see 
her only for a few weeks every two years? He 
wanted to see her every day and always now he 
could see her. It was no use; he couldn’t possibly 
live without her. He loved her—loved her in a way 
he had never conceived it possible to love anybody, 
not even Corisande; certainly not Corisande. There 
he had been overcome by a pretty face, but there 
had always been that subconscious discord. Rachel 
was his other self. They were the twain who in 
the Hindu legend, meet and part and meet again, 
seeking each other always through countless lives, 
to be united at last and for ever when perfection 
shall be gained. How blind, how much blinder than 
his eyes, his heart had been that he had not discov¬ 
ered it long ago. 

But after all hadn’t he always known it, right 
away from the very beginning, even when he had 
thought of her as an elderly woman? Hadn’t she 
always brought him that entirely satisfying sense of 
having found something he had been looking for all 

163 


Monte Felis 

his life? And Rachel? He told himself she too 
cared for him. Look how upset she had been when 
he told her that he could see. Nobody else would 
care as much as she did. Patch would be immensely 
relieved not to have to make any more plans for 
him. Archie would say “Good egg,” and his 
father? Well, his father would probably be glad 
that people would now stop boring him about his 
“poor son.” But Rachel—God bless her—had wept 
for joy. 


164 


Chapter XIII 


T HE tide was coming in, breaking in loud 
crashes among the fast disappearing rocks, 
as the sea advanced higher and higher on 
the ochre sands. Beyond, but not very far away, 
a big liner was advancing slowly and relentlessly, 
like a steam-roller, till it presently passed out of 
sight round the great headland that rose sheer from 
the water’s edge. When it was quite gone, Rachel 
told herself, she would speak. 

She was sitting with her knees drawn up, chin 
on hand, in the shadow of a rock. Beside her lay 
Maurice, raised on one elbow; idly playing with the 
fringe of the rug. During the drive he had been 
very silent, but as Rachel felt, extraordinarily 
happy. He had whistled a gay little tune, and once, 
when they turned on to the sea road and had met 
the thyme-laden breeze, he had broken off to ex¬ 
claim: “Good God! I never knew how good it 
was to be alive before.” 

He had been in this mood all morning, laugh¬ 
ing at every discovery he made of things she had 

16s 


Monte Felis 


described to him, nearly falling out of the window in • 
an effort to see Mrs. Philbeach, asleep in the garden 
with her hat on one side and her mouth open, but 
under all this bubbling high spirits a happiness that 
was too deep for outward showing. In desperation 
she had planned this picnic, which gave her a multi¬ 
tude of small excuses for keeping out of his way, 
less he should feel her lack of response, but all the 
while she packed the basket and gave directions to 
Brewster and the waiters, he had hung about her, 
as she knew too well, devouring her with his eyes. 

And now, with half a dozen words she was going 
to kill all this joy. 

As the last fragment of. the black hull vanished, 
she moistened her lips. 

“Have you ever wondered why I never said any¬ 
thing about my married life?” she asked, hoping 
that her voice sounded less unnatural to him than 
it did in her own ears. Maurice started slightly. 

“Ye—es,” he said, after a minute’s silence. 
“Your husband was killed in the war, wasn’t he?” 

Rachel’s heart was beating violently; cold hands 
seemed to wipe all the warmth from her face. 

“No,” she said, in a low voice. “He wasn’t 
killed; he’s still alive.” 

Maurice sat up abruptly. She could see that he 
166 


Monte Felis 

had gone very white under his brown skin. When 
he spoke he did so with elaborate calmness. 

“I suppose he went off with some other woman. 
Don’t tell me about it, if you’d rather not. But— 
but couldn’t you divorce him?” 

‘ No, ’ whispered Rachel. Her voice had gone 
altogether now. “It wasn’t that. He’s mad. He’s 
in an asylum.” 

She stared straight before her, at the cruel, 
thoughtless beauty of the sea, at the myriads of 
sand-flies, at a little lizard making its way up the 
sunny side of the rock. At anything, and any¬ 
where, rather than the silent, motionless figure be¬ 
side her. 

The sea had reached the farthest of the rocks, 
encircling it with two long white arms of foam, 
the little lizard had long ago rejoined his wife and 
family, and then at last Maurice moved a hand and 
took one of hers in a shaking, convulsive grip that 
hurt her. 

Slowly and haltingly she began to tell the story 
of her married life. How Edward had come down 
to Crampton to contest a by-election and had sought 
relief from the unsympathetic attitude of the elec¬ 
tors in making love to the prettiest girl among the 
families of his supporters. She, on her side, had 

167 


Monte Felis 


been easily dazzled by his facile good manners and 
amusing talk, so different from the men around her. 
His position at the Bar—he was already a minor 
celebrity in criminal cases—looked dazzling when 
viewed from Crampton, but more than anything 
else he offered an escape from the detested Morley 
Edge. 

One soft May evening he had proposed to her 
among Mrs. Morland’s carefully trained rose bushes, 
while from the open windows of the drawing-room 
came the strains of Enid, trampling the life out of 
the Moonlight Sonata on the pianola. He had 
kissed her, and she had been dimly aware that she 
disliked it. Perhaps it was natural that a man 
should be rather wild and excited at such a time. 
She was very glad when he at last consented to go 
back to the house and inform her relations, who 
greeted them with smiles of pleased expectancy. 
After that everybody had contributed to hurry 
things forward, and in the rush and whirl of clothes 
and a house to get, besides all the hundred and one 
aspects of a wholly new life, she had hardly time 
to realize a certain flatness and nervousness in her¬ 
self, and a disinclination to find herself too much 
alone with Edward. The Morlands expressed an 
almost extravagant esteem for him, though if he 
168 


Monte Felis 


had married anybody else, they might have been 
more alive to his superciliousness, and very obvious 
desire to have as little to do with them as possible, 
but as it was they were convinced that Rachel who 
“hasn’t our feeling about family ties,’’ was alone 
responsible for the fact that they hardly ever saw 
him again. Even now it was almost impossible to 
convince them that there could be anything seriously 
wrong about a man who was making such a good 
income. 

Of the ten years that followed, Rachel said little. 
There had been a gradual but steady change in Ed¬ 
ward. His fancy for her quickly cooled into some¬ 
thing that was nearer dislike than indifference. 
Little oddnesses which he had always had became 
more marked, and what had been occasional irrita¬ 
bility gave place to frequent and wholly unreason¬ 
able fits of fury. A series of what had been euphe¬ 
mistically called nervous breakdowns had followed, 
until finally. . . . “Well, they had to see it,” she 
broke off. 

Maurice had listened in silence, but as she finished 
the tension of his fingers relaxed, though he still 
held her hand. 

“You didn’t love him, then?” he asked in a low 


voice. 


169 


Monte Felis 

“No,” Rachel answered. “I see now that I never 
did, even at first. I didn’t know what it was,” she 
added simply. 

Maurice said nothing. He lifted her hand very 
gently and kissed it as he had done the night before. 

“Is there no way out?” he asked at length. 

“None, he may live for years. His health is very 
good.” 

Maurice rose to his feet as if driven to movement 
by an instinct of escape from his present misery. 
He strode forward heedlessly, fortunately striking 
a track of clear sand. Rachel watched him go with 
dull eyes. 

The sun had dipped till it nearly touched the 
water, turning it to a molten lake. A chill wind 
had sprung up fluttering her thin silk blouse. 

Away on the road she heard the occasional 
tinkle of a bell which told her that the cab had 
come to fetch them, but she made no movement. 
A kind of deadly lethargy had fallen on her. She 
was only conscious that she was very, very tired. 
Everything and everybody seemed a long way off. 
She longed to go to sleep, somewhere down near 
the water’s edge, where the sea would come and 
carry her away, and she would never wake again. 
Her eyes closed, and then opened suddenly. 

170 


Monte Felis 

“Rachel!’’ Maurice had called. 

It was the first time he had used her name. He 
was close to her on the other side of the rock. She 
sprang to her feet and ran to him. He caught her 
hands and held them in a frightened grasp. 

“Come home/’ she said. “It’s cold now the sun’s 
gone. . . .” 

The cabman was plodding towards them over the 
heavy sand. He gathered up the rug and the lunch¬ 
eon basket, and went on ahead. Rachel looked 
round her as people sometimes do when leaving a 
room in which they have been very ill. Then auto¬ 
matically taking Maurice by the arm, they made 
their way slowly to the carriage. 

Neither of them spoke during the long drive 
through the gathering gloom. The sea had turned 
from copper to lead, and was lashing the rocks with 
angry cries. Every now and then a bigger wave 
than its fellows would top the cliff, and the wind 
would carry a scud of spray across their faces. 
Overhead a dark bird whirled and screamed. 

“There’s going to be the devil of a storm,” the 
driver remarked cheerfully. 

In her thick coat Rachel still shivered. She felt 
as if she would never be warm again. When they 
came within the radius of the hotel lights, she saw 

171 


Monte Felis 

that Maurice’s face looked tired and drawn, and 
wore that peculiar grey pallor common to very dark 
people. But when she asked him if he was cold, 
he denied it. 

“We’d better go down to dinner ?” he asked 
doubtfully. 

“Yes, yes,” Rachel answered. 


172 


Chapter XIV 


F OR some days they outwardly continued 
their ordinary life, but fearfully and grop¬ 
ingly, as if they feared that a stray step 
would carry them over a precipice of which they 
were perpetually conscious but could not see. Rachel 
read aloud till she could read no more, often going 
over the same page twice unnoticed by either of 
them. At meal-times they talked unceasingly and 
ofter incoherently of the news that came in the 
papers, or of anything and everything rather than 
let one of those terribly speaking silences intervene. 
Afterwards they would join the other visitors, who 
were suspicious and rather resentful of this sudden 
sociability. 

Before long Rachel came to be very grateful to 

• 

Mr. Whittaker. Of all the men he seemed to be 
the only one that Maurice could endure, and having 
no other claims on him, was always ready for a walk 
or an argument. It was a relief to her when she 
could leave them together, and listen to Daisy Carter, 
prattling to some giggling, open-mouthed Portuguese 

173 


Monte Felis 


girls of how she and her generation were reforming 
the world, or she would ask Mrs. Pringle to show her 
a crochet pattern. The latter was not at all averse 
to displaying her acquirements in this art, but was 
hampered by her fear of incurring the censure of 
Miss Simmonds and the chaplain’s wife. Mrs. 
Cassilis, too, in spite of her professed eagerness to 
learn, proved both stupid and inattentive. Mrs. 
Pringle laughed very heartily when she heard Mr. 
Whittaker refer to her as a clever woman. 

And so the days wore themselves out somehow, 
interspersed by the long sleepless nights. It couldn’t 
go on, Rachel told herself a hundred times in the 
twenty-four hours, but how to end it? Maurice’s 
sight had returned, but in nothing like the measure 
she had imagined when he had first told her he could 
see. Except for finding his way about, he declared 
he could do nothing for himself, nor did he seem 
to get any better. It must be the strain he was 
under that was keeping him back. She must leave 
him, there was nothing else for it. She would tell 
Mrs. Reval that urgent family affairs had recalled 
her to England, and suggest that for a time at any 
rate Mr. Whittaker should take her place. 

But then came the question of what she was to 
say to Maurice. He, too, would have to be told 
174 


Monte Felis 

something that would make it all easy, something 
that made it quite simple for her to go away without 
its hurting him too much—above all things, without 
his guessing how much it hurt her. But at this her 
common sense would revolt. It was many weeks 
too late for anything like that. And the old tor¬ 
menting questions would begin all over again. One 
thing remained clear. However she left him, it 
must be in such a way that everything between them 
was broken off for ever. If he was to be happy, she 
must go out of his life so entirely that in time he 
would forget her. Once he returned to his own life, 
with its incessant round of pleasures and interests— 
yes, and its hundreds of charming women. . . . 
No, no, he would never forget her. No one could 
cut whole months out of their memories. Surely 
it was enough to wish that he should be happy again ? 

One afternoon she made a slight cold the pretext 
for sending him out with Mr. Whittaker, telling 
herself that by the time they came back she would 
have made up her mind what she was going to do, 
for she felt that Maurice too was approaching a 
conclusion, and she dreaded of all things that she 
might have to argue it. 

She would have to be very cheerful, very cool 
and rather hard about it, she told herself, and bit 

175 


Monte Felis 


her trembling lips. She was watching them go 
down the road, Maurice with his long stride, and 
little Mr. Whittaker, limping and half running to 
keep up with him. Maurice must see pretty well to 
be able to walk like that. He swung his stick and 
struck at a geranium blossom hanging over a wall, 
neatly severing its head. The conviction darted 
across her that he could see very much better than 
he would admit. Oh, poor darling, he was making 
a pretence of blindness because he knew how hard 
it would make it to leave him, the pitiful little com¬ 
edy that he played at every meal, his insistence on 
his inability to do anything for himself, was all to 
that end. Poor, poor darling. A sobbing laugh 
rose in her throat as she thought of how only this 
morning he had deliberately poured his coffee on 
his plate instead of his cup, and then called her at¬ 
tention to it. 

Brewster came in and asked her a question which 
she answered without turning round. As the door 
closed behind him she left the window and went 
over to the table on which he had left the post. 
There might be an answer to a letter she had written 
on Maurice’s behalf, asking for details of a horse 
which a friend wished to sell. If it had come it 
would give him something to think about. But 
176 


Monte Felis 

there was nothing for him except the newspapers. 

She looked through her own correspondence, and 
to her surprise found a letter addressed by her 
uncle. She had not often heard from them, though 
her aunt had written letters of mild complaint that 
she should have gone so far away, and had told 
them nothing about the people she was with. Her 
uncle hadn’t written to her three times in her life. 
It must be something about business. Probably the 
asylum people had raised their fees again. That 
would mean that as soon as possible she must get 
a paid job. What on earth were her qualifications? 

“We are surprised to hear nothing of an early 
date of your return,” the letter began, “and so, I 
gather, is Edward. I saw him last week at Box- 
mouth, where he is staying with Algernon Cassilis, 
and picking up every day. Dr. Cassilis tells me 
that this time there is every reason to hope that his 
recovery is complete, and permanent. In any case 
I understand that you need not fear any return of 
the unpleasant occurrences of last autumn. This, 
of course, completely alters financial arrange¬ 
ments. . . .” 

For a moment or two she saw nothing at all, the 
letter was only a shaking blur. She sat down on 
Maurice’s chair, and for a long time stared wide- 

177 


Monte Felis 


eyed at the wall in front of her, then she rose slowly 
and stiffly to her feet like a very old woman. 

“It isn’t true. But, of course, it can’t be true. 
. . . There’s some mistake somewhere . . . some 
mistake somewhere.” 

The last words kept repeating themselves over 
and over to an idiotic little tune that ran in her 
head. She went to her writing-case and took out 
three unopened letters. They were all from the 
asylum, speaking in turn of a wonderful improve¬ 
ment, a complete reversion of the doctor’s first 
diagnosis of the trouble as brain disease . . . local 
and temporary obstruction ... no likelihood of 
repetition. . . . Finally a rather stiff epistle saying 
that as they had been unable to get into direct com¬ 
munication with her, they had applied to Dr. Al¬ 
gernon Cassilis, who had removed his brother with 
the full approval of the asylum doctor. 

Rachel crumpled the letters up and thrust them 
back into her case. A mad impulse seized her to 
pretend they had never reached her; to go on as 
if they had never come. . . . She laughed. It was 
funny when you came to think of it, or at least she 
supposed it was funny, or why was she laughing? 
She wished she could stop, but the silent rattling 
gasping went on just the same. She had asked for 
178 


Monte Felis 


some way out of her present difficulties, and this 
was the answer. She was to go back to Edward. 
Back to the old life of incessant watching, of hide¬ 
ous daily and nightly terror. “Recovery ?” There 
could be no such thing. He was born with a warp; 
he had never been quite sane. Bit by bit she had 
pieced together fragments of old stories—of how 
he had nearly killed a boy at school in a fit of fury 
for which there seemed no cause; how he had more 
than once been found torturing animals in ways too 
horrible to name. Then, too, what of his father, 
who had died of an odd sort of shooting accident? 
And of an aunt who had fallen in front of a train? 
How careful Algy was of himself, avoiding all 
excitement and overwork. Why had he never mar¬ 
ried? There was a woman he had loved for years, 
who certainly cared for him. And yet, Rachel knew 
only too well, Algy would be as urgent as any of 
them that she should go back to Edward, but then 
Edward was Algy’s obsession. Like her own family 
he had refused to see that that last night of all when 
Edward had crept into her room with an open razor 
in his hand it was her life he had meant to take, not 
his own. His hatred of her had latterly been his 
most persistent obsession, though he hid it, except 
when they were alone, with a cleverness that some- 

170 


Monte Felis 

times frightened her more than his violence. It 
had deceived Algy as it was meant to do, and had 
blunted his belief in her veracity when she had told 
him of other things. She was imagining it, she was 
overwrought, and perhaps a little hysterical. Ed¬ 
ward wasn’t mad. Oh dear, no, she mustn’t think 
dreadful things like that. Besides he was devoted 
to her. No, there would be no help to be got from 
Algy, given the least excuse, and doctor as he was' 
he would go back to his old illusions, simply because 
he couldn’t bear to think anything else. 

Her family? Rachel laughed again. What a 
relief it would be when they could say to inquiring 
and inquisitive friends that the Cassilis were in 
Scotland and they hoped would spend a few days 
with them on their way south. Dear Edward was 
quite strong again, and Rachel so happy to be with 
him. Yes; war strain, you know, and then his 
lungs never were very strong, like so many clever 
men. And so forth, till Edward, biding his time, 
would have another “nervous breakdown” and there 
would be a last and final “unpleasant occurrence.” 

She found it possible to wish it might come 
soon. 

A sense of her own utter weakness and helpless¬ 
ness overcame her. Her arms lay limp on the table 
180 


Monte Fehs 


before her, and her head dropped forward on to 
them. 

The door opened quietly and Maurice was in the 
room almost before she heard him. She sat up 
hastily, pretending to write. 

‘‘Why did you come in so soon?” she asked with¬ 
out looking up. “You might have stayed out an¬ 
other half-hour.” 

Maurice walked round the table and stood opposite 
to her. 

“Old Whittaker was tired, and . . . well I did,” 
he concluded. 

Rachel got up and went to a side table. She 
began to turn over a heap of books, looking at the 
titles. 

“I’ll read till dinner-time,” she said. 

Maurice came up behind her, and putting his 
hands on her shoulders, turned her round. 

“You forget I can see,” he said dryly; and then 
in another tone: “Rachel, what is it? It’s no use 
trying to keep up this pretence any longer. . . . 
It only makes it worse for both of us. We’d better 
have it out.” 

Rachel turned her head away and shut her eyes. 

“I must go,” she whispered. 

Maurice’s hands dropped by his sides. He 

181 


Monte Felis 


turned away with a groan and walked over to the 
window. 

For a long time he stood there with his back to 
the room. The short twilight was fast fading, leav¬ 
ing the sky faintly powdered with the coming stars. 
Down in the garden the palm trees swayed like giant 
hearse plumes. Out in the corridor Maria was 
stumping about, carrying hot water to the different 
bedrooms, to the accompaniment of strident song. 
The little travelling clock on the monumental card 
table struck half-past six. 

So Rachel was going to leave him. He had 
known it must come ever since the afternoon on 
the sandhills, and in the long nights that followed 
he had tossed about, trying one solution after an¬ 
other by which he might at any price keep her. He 
felt it would have been a perfectly justifiable and 
simple thing to find out where Edward was and go 
and shoot him, as he would have shot a mad dog he 
found anywhere in her vicinity, but it would hardly 
have mended matters as far as he and she were con¬ 
cerned. Neither was there any question of a di¬ 
vorce, as far as he could find out. He had discussed 
the hypothetical case of a friend in a similar diffi¬ 
culty with Mr. Whittaker, who in the course of a 
varied career seemed to have picked up information 
182 


Monte Felis 


about most things. He seemed quite positive that 
insanity was not a basis for divorce. Nor, he 
thought, could an insane person bring an action 
against his wife should she (for the sake of argu¬ 
ment) consent to unite her life to that of another 
man. It was a very hard case in some instances, 
Mr. Whittaker remarked. Maurice’s comments 
lasted the greater part of the way home. 

What remained? 

Rachel of all women, hidden away at Greyladies 
like a chorus girl? Or wandering about the Con¬ 
tinent, exposed to the impertinent advances of de- 
classee women, or, what was almost as bad, that 
touch of floridness that crept into most men’s man¬ 
ners when they suspected a loose screw? Maurice 
squirmed. 

“Will you be dressin’ for dinner to-night, sir?” 

Brewster appeared at the door with an expres¬ 
sion of meek exasperation. Rachel was still stand¬ 
ing where Maurice had left her, her eyes fixed som¬ 
brely on him. 

“Been havin’ a few words,” Brewster reflected 
gloomily, as he followed Maurice into his room. 
He was fed up, he told himself; he had had a very 
trying week with the Capt’n, and wasn’t going to 
put up with it forever, not if he couldn’t give satis- 

183 


Monte Felis 

faction whatever he did—which was Mrs. Cassilis’ 
fault, not his, upsettin’ him. Whatever Mrs. Reval 
was thinking of to engage a young person like that, 
as was bound to give trouble, it beat him. 

He imparted something of this to Mrs. Phil- 
beach, as he polished a patent leather shoe in the 
passage. She had fallen into the habit of having 
bright little chats with him whenever she could 
catch him. “It was so lonely for the poor man, un¬ 
able to speak a word of the language.” 

It was not surprising therefore, that by the time 
they reached the dining-room that evening, all the 
English contingent were pretty well aware that Cap¬ 
tain Bannister and Mrs. Cassilis had had a row, and 
turned curious eyes on Rachel's white face. It 
was noticed that for once she and her companion 
hardly exchanged a word. Only little Mr. Whit¬ 
taker looked troubled. 

When they left the dining-room Maurice made 
straight for him, but having taken a chair beside 
him, he relapsed into silence. Rachel drifted into 
the hall and began to study the various shipping 
company’s announcements. There would be a boat 
in a day or two for Liverpool. She had better 
ring up the agents to-morrow and ask about a berth. 
Anyhow there was a 1 ways the train. ... No, not 
184 


Monte Felis 


that if she could go any other way, not an inverted 
repetition of their journey out. 

As she turned away from the notice board, she 
saw Maurice coming towards her. He took hold 
of her arm as he had done when he was blind, but 
now it was he who guided her. At the door of the 
sitting-room she tried to hold back as if she would 
have left him, but he drew her inside and closed the 
door. 

“Rachel,” he said hoarsely, “what is it to be?” 

He had her in his arms now, his hungry lips on 
hers. 

“I can't let you go, and you can’t leave me,” he 
whispered. “Why are we making ourselves miser¬ 
able?” 

“I must, I must,” moaned Rachel. 

For a long time they clung together like two un¬ 
happy children, and then Rachel tried gently to re¬ 
lease herself. 

“We’ll think better in the morning,” she said. 
“To-morrow we may see some way.” 

The bravery of her tone half convinced him, and 
at length he let her go. 


185 


Chapter XV 


R ACHEL spent most of the night packing. 

After this she must go—go at once, she 
kept repeating to herself. 

Over there in that other room, only a few yards 
away, Maurice sleepless and miserable, was walking 
up and down, up and down. In the stillness all 
around, she could faintly hear his regular tramp up 
to the window and back again to the door, as she 
had heard it often enough these last nights. Once, 
when she went to her own window and looked out, 
she saw a burning cigarette-end glow for a second 
in the darkness, as it fell on the garden path. She 
drew back quickly, shaking from head to foot. She 
mustn’t listen to him. She mustn’t even think of 
him, or this agonizing longing to go and comfort 
him and get comfort for herself, would get the 
better of her. She shut the window sharply, and 
turned feverishly to her packing. 

When that was done she wrote out telegrams to 
her uncle and her brother-in-law. No need for 
186 


Monte Felis 


letters as she was coming back, besides what could 
she say? She debated for some time whether or 
not to write to Mrs. Reval, and finally decided that 
it would be best to let Maurice tell her as much as 
he thought fit. The less she told anyone belonging 
to him, the less chance there was of him finding out 
that she had gone back to Edward. That at least 
she could spare him. 

Then when all was done that could be done, she 
fell on her bed, and slept a dreamless exhausted 
sleep till morning. 

She woke with her brain almost unnaturally clear, 
feeling for the time being seemed dead, everything 
concentrated on the one point of getting through 
what she had to do without making a mistake. 

On the way back from the post office she met 
Mr. Whittaker, who turned back to the hotel with 
her. She was obliged to go home suddenly, she 
told him. Would he . . . might she ask him to be 
as much with . . . she bit her lip. 

“Captain Bannister? Of course,” he would be 
delighted . . . anything he could do. He hoped 
it was not bad news. 

“Yes,” said Rachel, “very bad news.” 

Mr. Whittaker murmured something about being 
very sorry indeed, and they walked on in silence. 

187 


Monte Felis 


Just as they reached the hotel, Rachel stopped and 
faced him. 

“I’m going by the 7.15 this evening.” She 
swallowed something, and then continued. “He 
... I don’t want to plague him with good¬ 
byes. . . . Will you go up to him, when you know 
I’m gone?” 

Mr. Whittaker was studying a little pebble which 
he was prodding with his stick. He did not look 
up. 

“Yes,” he assented, “I’ll do that.” 

“Thank you. . . .” She half hesitated and then 
turned away into the garden. 

In the hall of the hotel the porter was waiting for 
her, with the registration ticket of her luggage which 
had gone up by an early train. She hoped it had 
disappeared before anyone was about, but even if 
Brewster had seen it, he would not be likely to men¬ 
tion it to his master, who had been unapproachable 
these last days. 

She found Maurice wandering listlessly about the 
sitting-room. He came quickly towards her and 
taking both her hands in his, kissed first one and 
then the other, on the backs and then on the palms. 

“I couldn’t think where you were,” he said, with 
a sigh of relief. 

188 


Monte Felis 

For a moment her steadiness was shaken, but she 
controlled herself sufficiently to ask: 

“Shall we go out?” 

“Yes, for the whole day—we’ll take lunch and 
tea. I couldn’t stand those blighters down-stairs. 
. . . Oh Rachel, Rachel . . 

She could feel his eyes searching her face, and 
kept her own fixed on his coat collar from which 
she was removing imaginary specks of dust as she 
talked rather breathlessly. 

“We’ll go to that hill I told you about, you’ll be 
able to see the view now, won’t you? I’ll go and 
put on my hat, and you can tell Brewster about the 
carriage and the lunch.” 

She had made a rapid calculation. It would mean 
getting back about half-past six. That would be 
time enough, and it would be immeasurably easier 
than a day in the hotel, with the danger of someone 
saying something about her luggage or her room. 

These last hours at least were hers; let them be 
such as neither of them would ever forget. For 
this day they would live as it might have been given 
to them to live always, and perhaps some little of 
the glamour of it might linger through the desola¬ 
tion that must follow. 

Never before had she been so entrancing; at one 

189 


Monte Felis 


moment teasing and the next tender, till Maurice, 
bewildered and bewitched, hid his face against her 
knee, lest even through his mask, she should read the 
madness in his eyes. 

The shadows of the pine trees lay in bars about 
them and through the slim trunks the sea shim¬ 
mered and danced, away beyond the stretches of 
heather and bog myrtle, where the sun drank the 
heavy honey-scented sweetness from the cistus 
bushes. Across the shining water a black ship crept 
slowly northwards. Rachel looked at it and looked 
away, but Maurice did not see it. He was intent 
on plaiting the fringe of a scarf she was wearing 
into little pig-tails and tying them up with grass, 
and a hundred other childish plays. He was so 
happy he hardly knew what he did. Gone were the 
doubts and hesitations of yesterday; what did he 
and Rachel care for those scarecrows of old preju¬ 
dice, the Church and the Law? Public opinion had 
left them behind ages ago, and sooner or later they 
would be forced to catch it up. The law would 
be altered. It was inconceivable that a civilized 
country could continue to consent to such a state 
of things. In the meantime he would carry her off 
to a tent in the desert, where they would never see 
the face of a white man or woman, or thev would 
190 


Monte Felis 

go to one of those islands that you have more or 
less to yourself—he had heard of something of the 
sort in the South Pacific—and stop there until things 
straightened out. She was all his, he was sure of 
it. What else mattered? 

But as they drove home through the gathering 
dusk, hand clasped in hand under the rug, a vague 
discomfort, that was more uncertainty than fear, 
crept over him. A silence had fallen on them—the 
silence of sheer happiness, he told himself. A chill 
mist was drifting in from the sea, which might later 
turn to rain, but by then they would be safe in¬ 
doors. . . . 

When the sitting-room was reached, Rachel saw 
with a cold clutch at her heart that it was a quarter 
to seven. 

“Maurice ;” she said quickly, “would it, just for a 
minute, hurt you to take off your mask?” 

Without waiting for an answer she lit two candles 
and turned out the electric light. When she turned 
to look at him he had unbuckled the strap at the 
back of his head, and she saw him for the first time 
with his face uncovered. For a moment it seemed 
like a new person, not Maurice at all. She held 
away, a little shy and surprised . . . she had no 
idea he was so beautiful, and yet it was her own 

191 


Monte Felis 

Maurice when he smiled. She ran to him with a 
little cry, and drawing down his head kissed him 
passionately on his eyes and on his lips. Maurice 
heard her say something under her breath. Her 
vehemence frightened him. 

“It’s going to be all right, sweetheart,” he whis¬ 
pered. 

“Yes, yes,” she answered in the same tone. 
“Some day it will be all right.” 

As the clock struck seven she released him, smiling 
bravely. 

“Go and dress for dinner, darling, or we shall be 
late.” 

“You won’t be long?” he asked uncertainly. 

“No, no, not long,” she smiled, kissing her fingers 
to him. 

Maurice half reassured, went to his own 
room. 

She listened till she heard him shut the door. 
Then she stooped and kissed the cushion against 
which his head had rested, his cigarette-case, and 
the gloves he had left on the table. As she did so 
she noticed that she had forgotten her work-bag. 
Never mind, it might stay. With another fright¬ 
ened look at the clock, she pulled her veil over her 
streaming eyes, and went downstairs. 

192 


Monte Felis 

In the deserted hall there was no one but Mr. 
Whittaker. She could only give him her hand. 
He got very red. 

“Good-bye, Mrs. Cassilis, you're a brave woman, 
if you’ll allow me to say so.” 

Rachel shook her head, and ran down the steps 
to the road that led to the station. 

For a little while after she had passed out of 
sight, Mr. Whittaker stood looking after her. 

“Poor soul, poor soul,” he said to himself, as he 
heard a train rumble away in the darkness. He 
left the door and walked irresolutely towards the 
staircase. Bannister must have found out by now, 
he reflected. He halted and looked up into the 
empty bareness of the landing above. Better leave 
him to himself for a bit. 

He turned away and went into the dining-room 
instead. Most of the other people seemed to have 
come down. For a course or two he made a pre¬ 
tence of eating, all the time haunted by the thought 
of the man upstairs, and the weeping woman in the 
train. It was no use, he wasn’t hungry. He 
pushed back his plate and rose to go. As he passed 
her table, Mrs. Philbeach stopped him. 

“Tell me, Mr. Whittaker. As you’re such a fa¬ 
voured friend you must know all about it. Is it 

193 


Monte Felis 

really true that Captain Bannister has dismissed 
Mrs. Cassilis?” 

“No/’ said Mr. Whittaker shortly. “Mrs. Cas- 
silis has been obliged to return home on account of 
some trouble in her own family. She asked me to 
say good-bye to you all for her.” 

Mrs. Philbeach nodded sagaciously. 

“Hum, I daresay that’s what she’d say. But you 
know Brewster, Captain Bannister’s valet, such a 
good fellow, so devoted to his master; he says she’s 
been very unsatisfactory lately. Of course one 
couldn’t help seeing she got on Captain Bannister’s 
nerves. I always say it doesn’t do to let servants 
talk-” 

“I quite agree with you,” interposed Mr. Whit¬ 
taker, and left her. 

“It was just as I thought,” he had the comfort 
of hearing her inform Mrs. Pringle. 

He made his way slowly upstairs and knocked at 
the sitting-room door. There was no reply, and 
after a momentary hesitation he went in. 

Maurice was sitting in his usual place, his head 
bent forward and his hands hanging limply over 
his knees. In one of them he held a gay little crim¬ 
son silk work-bag. As the door opened he hastily 
stuffed it into his coat pocket. 

194 



Monte Felis 


“I’ve come to have a smoke with you, if I may,” 
his visitor announced. 

He took a cigar from the box that was pushed 
towards him and lit it. Maurice had resumed his 
mask. Every now and then his mouth drew 
into a thin line, and he shivered as if he were 
cold. 

“Raining, isn't it?” he asked, after a long silence. 

“Er, yes, I think it is. It was beginning when I 
was at the door just before dinner. But of course 
that doesn’t mean that it will necessarily be wet to¬ 
morrow. The glass is very high.” 

Another silence. Mr. Whittaker felt a miserable 
failure. 

“You dined up here?” he hazarded. 

“Yes, that is. ... I didn’t dine. Got a beastly 
head. . . . Didn’t want anything.” 

“It’s this queer weather,” Mr. Whittaker agreed. 
“I’m a bit out of sorts myself. Later on I’ll ask you 
to give me a whisky and soda.” 

“Of course, anything you like.” 

Another pause. 

“Queer business this in Ireland,” began Mr. 
Whittaker in despair. “Very queer,’’ agreed Mau¬ 
rice politely. 

At ten o’clock Brewster, looking rather fright- 

195 


Monte Felis 

ened, brought in a tray with whisky and soda and 
a plate of sandwiches. Forgetting that Maurice 
could see, he winked confidentially at Mr. Whittaker, 
and pointed to the food. 

“I shan’t want you again to-night,” Maurice 
told him. 

“You won’t be wanting anything more to-night, 
sir? 

“No,” said Maurice sharply. “I told you so.” 

Brewster departed with another significant grim¬ 
ace at Mr. Whittaker. 

Maurice drank the whisky thirstily, but shook 
his head at the sandwiches as if he hated the sight 
of them. 

“You ought to eat something with that head.” 

“No thanks.” 

“I’m afraid you’ve thought me an awful bore 
coming like this.” 

A sound conveying something in the nature of a 
polite negative. 

“The truth is she asked me to . . Mr. Whit¬ 
taker felt very brave. 

Maurice’s head had been turned away, but at this 
he looked round sharply. 

“Thanks very much. Mrs. Cassilis,” he pro¬ 
nounced the name very carefully and distinctly, 
196 


Monte Felis 

‘‘probably told you that she was obliged to leave 
rather suddenly?” 

Mr. Whittaker seemed to be measuring the quan¬ 
tity of liquid remaining in his glass. 

“Bad news from home, I understood.” 

“Quite so.” 

Maurice had risen to his feet. Mr. Whittaker 
hastily finished his whisky and stood up also. 

“Well, I hope your head will be better in the 
morning,” he said with a disastrous assumption of 
heartiness. “You’ll be glad to turn in. . . . Care 
for a walk to-morrow?” 

The other winced. 

“I’ll let you know. . . . Thanks for coming.” 

Mr. Whittaker opened the door, but before he 
had quite closed it behind him, he saw Maurice’s 
hand go to his pocket, from which the red ribbon 
of the little bag still dangled. 


197 


Chapter XVI 


T HE left-hand window of the railway car¬ 
riage presented a view of self-conscious 
looking pink houses, with a white substance 
oozing from the seams, which showed an increas¬ 
ing tendency to arrange themselves in rows, ending 
sooner or later in a wilderness of dock-leaves, broken 
bricks, empty tin cans, and sign-boards informing 
pioneers that the land might be acquired for build¬ 
ing purposes. 

On the other side of the line the scene was much 
the same as it had been for the last half-hour—a 
dreary waste of chocolate mud, merging into some¬ 
thing darker and greyer in the distance, presumably 
the sea in full retreat. Even here, however, the 
hand of man was becoming evident. A broad strip 
of asphalt suddenly emerged from beneath the loose 
sand and pale, wiry grass, as if it had been running 
underground all the way from Fiddler’s Sands. At 
intervals it was broken by all too obviously necessary 
shelters and in one place by a bandstand, from which 
most of the paint had scaled and fallen. 

198 


Monte Felis 


This must be Boxmouth, Rachel thought, and 
huddled her cloak closer round her. 

The rain descended in an off-and-on fashion, in¬ 
terfered with by an ill-tempered wind, which, with 
occasional bursts of increased vindictiveness, shook 
the carriage windows, and tore at the hats and 
skirts of half a dozen yellow-cheeked blue-nosed 
health seekers, who straggled about the esplanade. 

It was coming closer and closer, the moment when 
she would see Edward again. She was surprised 
to find that she felt so little moved by the thought. 
She was not even afraid. Since she had left Monte 
Felis her mind had been a complete blank, she was 
too tired to remember even how she had come here. 
Some mechanical part of her brain must have func¬ 
tioned sufficiently to get her through the various 
processes of ticket taking and bill paying. It was 
like being passively conveyed by somebody else 
while she herself stood by and did as she was told. 

The last four months seemed to belong to a golden 
improbable past, an enchanted world into which she 
had strayed between sleeping and waking. And 
now like the traditional goose-girl, like Cinderella 
among next morning’s ashes, like Tannhauser at the 
respectable Court of the Landgrave, she was back 
once more in a world of harsh words and hard 

199 




Monte Felis 

knocks, with only a little brown spot on her coat 
to show she had ever been anywhere else. 

She stared at the mark with a kind of incredulity, 
then stroked it gently with her finger and folded 
a pleat over it. Maurice had let a match fall on 
it one day, ever so long ago, on that other shore, 
with its red-gold sands, and its dancing, blue-green 
sea. 

She roused herself with a jerk and looked out of 
the window again. The railway seemed to run all 
round the little town, before it came to rest some¬ 
where in a hinterland of small lodging-houses. 

What was going to happen next? What did it 
matter? She had no energy to fight; let them do 
what they liked. If only it would be over quickly, 
and she could just go to sleep and not wake again. 

As the train began to slow down, she got up and 
collected her possessions. 

Perhaps Algy would have come to meet her, not 
. . . But no, it was her aunt standing there by a 
luggage truck. So the Morlands had come, too, to 
see she gave no trouble. 

“Isn’t this too lovely?” began Mrs. Morland al¬ 
most before she was within earshot. “Edward is 
so well. We saw him this morning. They’re in 
a furnished house, you know. Oh dear, I hope 


200 


Monte Felis 


that isn’t tar on my dress, it must have been off the 
wheel of that truck, and I didn’t notice it; perhaps 
a little petrol will do it. How happy all this is. 
And where is your luggage? Mind the truck, or 
you may get some of it. Here is a porter. We 
have a cab waiting, I told the man not to go away, 
so as to make sure. Sometimes there is quite a rush 
by this train, though of course it isn’t the season 
yet. We shouldn’t like it if it was. It’s so much 
quieter now with no dreadful trippers about. Uncle 
John has gone for a little walk—you know he al¬ 
ways likes a little walk in the afternoon—but he will 
be in for tea.” 

In the course of what seemed like an interminable 
drive, entombed in an evil-smelling landau, Rachel 
learnt that her aunt and uncle had taken rooms in 

9 

the same hotel as herself. The servants had had 
no rest since the wedding. It always suited Uncle 
John to have a little change in the spring. They 
never went away at Easter as some people did; be¬ 
cause poor Mr. Martin would miss their contribu¬ 
tion to the offertory, but on the Wednesday after 
that—that was to say, the day before yesterday— 
they had left Crampton in the car. Such a good 
run, leaving Morley Edge at ten and getting here 
just in time for a late tea. Not a single puncture, 


201 


Monte Yells 

but of course that was because Mason was such a 
good driver. Yes, Mason was here, and Jackson, 
too. They would be so pleased to see Rachel. The 
kitchens had had to be painted, and two of the serv* 
ants’ bedrooms repapered where that tiresome pipe 
had burst in the frost. The spare room really ought 
to be done, but that would have to wait. The kitch¬ 
ens really couldn’t be left any longer. Mrs. Mor- 
land was ashamed of the charwoman seeing them, 
but it had all made a dreadful upset. 

Here they were, this was the hotel. Of course 
they had their own sitting-room. Uncle John 
wouldn’t like to sit in the public ones, people came 
and spoke to you if you did. It was really very 
comfortable and very clean. The manager was 
very obliging of course, they were always keen 
enough to get their sort of clients. Rachel must, 
of course, use the sitting-room, too. Here it was, 
the third door on the left. 

Rachel looked vaguely at the photogravures of 
“Wedded” and “The Soul’s Awakening,” which 
with smaller expressions of the art of Miss Maud 
Goodman, assisted to cover up the patches of damp 
on the salmon-pink wallpaper. An ample English 
tea was spread on the table, and a bright fire sent at 
least twice as much smoke up the chimney as it did 


202 


Monte Felis 

into the room. Why then at this moment should 
the memory of that other room come so blindingly 
before her. The bare grey walls, the dull brown 
linoleum on the floor, the grass-green tablecloth, with 
the yellow flannel sunflowers. . . . Through the 
window the dingy sea could be seen, reluctantly re¬ 
turning to Boxmouth. 

“Such a nice view, isn’t it?” remarked Mrs. 
Morland, in a proprietary tone. “On clear days you 
can see part of a wreck there was last winter. 
Come and have tea now, because I know you’ll 
want to be running off to Edward. He’s so well, 
as I said before; and seemed quite to enjoy a chat 
with Uncle John. He’s got a little stout, you 
know. I expect he’s not been taking much exercise. 
I believe it’s part of a rest cure to keep you lying 
down a good deal. Here’s Mrs. Cassilis, Jackson” 
—as a respectable elderly maid came into the room 
—“isn’t she looking well? I’m sure Mr. Cassilis 
will think we’ve taken good care of her.” 

The maid tendered a respectful opinion that Mrs. 
Cassilis was “fuller in the face” and asked for her 
keys. What dress would she be wearing for din¬ 
ner ? The black. Her aunt applauded the decision. 
It was much better style to dress quietly in hotels. 

Prattle of the Greenwoods and the Willsons filled 

203 


Monte Felis 

the next half-hour. The children of the former 
had had the measles, and Enid, well, Mrs. Morland 
supposed there was no harm in telling Rachel, only 
she must be sure not to talk about it to anybody 
else, because it was early days yet. Jackson, of 
course, knew, but then she’d been with them so 
long. . . . 

Mrs. Morland’s delighted asterisks died on her 
lips as her husband came in. 

“Well,” she resumed heartily, “so you’ve had 
your little walk. Rachel, ring the bell, and the 
waiter will bring fresh tea for Uncle John. We 
had ours early because of your journey.” 

Mr. Morland surveyed his niece without en¬ 
thusiasm. 

“I’ve just met Algernon Cassilis,” he grunted, as 
he submitted to her perfunctory kiss. “He says 
they’re coming round here presently.” 

“I hope you asked them to dinner. We could 
have one of those larger tables by the window,” in¬ 
terposed his wife. “Dear me, I feel just as if it 
were one of the girls getting engaged again.” 

“Wouldn’t come.” Mr. Morland cut her short. 
“Says Edward needs all the sleep he can get.” 

No excitement, thought Rachel. Algy, then, 
didn’t seem so very sure. 

204 


Monte Felis 


Mrs. Morland babbled on of what they had done 
when they had stayed in hotels when the girls had 
been engaged. Rachel wondered where she had seen 
it and heard it all before. Or perhaps it was a 
Grand Guignol she remembered, in which a man was 
slowly strangled while a hurdy-gurdy rattled out 
sentimental ballads in the street below. 

Not till she was alone in her own room did it 
strike her that neither her aunt nor her uncle had 
asked her a single question about her own doings. 
Perhaps they meant to ignore the fact that she had 
ever been away. 

Someone knocked at the door. 

“Entra,” said Rachel, from long habit. 

A wooden-faced chambermaid put her head in. 

“Two gentlemen to see you, madam, they’re in 
the settin’-room.” 

Rachel went deadly cold all over; it had come then. 
She began to tremble violently. 

“Tell them I’m coming,” she managed to say. 

She made a long business of brushing her hair 
and washing her face, further drawn out by her 
shaking hands which dropped everything she took 
up. At last it could be spun out no longer. If she 
didn’t go now, she would never be able to go of her 
own accord. 


205 


Monte Felis 

She opened the door and stumbled blindly down 
the corridor. 

Algernon was standing before the fire warming 
his hands. Edward was over by the window play¬ 
ing with the blind tassel. He was, as Mrs. Mor- 
land had said, much stouter. . . . Almost bloated. 
His features had grown gross, but his restless ex¬ 
pressionless eyes were just the same. 

He came forward briskly. 

“My dear girl, we’d almost given you up. Didn’t 
they tell you I was here?” 

She shut her eyes as he came nearer and implanted 
a kiss on her cheek that seemed to sting. 

“What sort of a journey did you have?” asked 
her brother-in-law. He made a sign to her to say 
something to Edward, who had returned to his blind 
tassle. 

“Have you been playing golf?” she stammered. 
She noticed that her nervousness seemed to affect 
Dr. Cassilis. 

“Oh yes, I play golf,” replied Edward, “I’m per¬ 
fectly safe with a club, if that’s what you mean,” 
he added with a grin. 

“But I say, you know,” he went on before she 
could speak, “it’s all very well, but I can’t hang 
about this infernal little place for ever even to amuse 
206 


Monte Felis 

you, my dear girl. You’ve kept me hanging about 
here long enough. I’ve written to the Lord Chan¬ 
cellor that I must see him on Tuesday. If he 
doesn’t see me then, he’ll be sorry for it. These 
fellows, none of them understand my real position. 
Why I could break any of them in an hour. They 
don’t know who they’re up against.” 

He laughed discordantly. 

Rachel had heard the same sort of boasting so 
often before, that she was not much impressed, but 
Dr. Cassilis looked worried. 

“Come and sit down, Edward,” he said persua¬ 
sively. “Rachel has told us nothing about what she 
has been doing.” 

Rachel wondered if he noticed the look Edward 
gave her as he took his place by her on the sofa. 
She had faced it many times before, there was only 
one way—to show him that she wasn’t in the least 
afraid; to beat down his will with hers, till his eyes 
would begin to shift about, and he would be forced 
to look away. But now, to her horror she found 
that all the power had gone out of her. It required 
all the self-control she possessed to sit where she was, 
and not cry out. 

“These people you were with, I understand the 
name was Bannister. Were they any relation to 

207 


Monte Felis 

the old General?” Dr. Cassilis was asking conver¬ 
sationally. 

“Yes,” she managed to reply. 

“His brother, I suppose?” 

“No.” 

She wondered what he thought of her parrot-like 
answers, and suddenly flaming face. 

“There was a daughter, I remember, a very beau¬ 
tiful woman. I saw her once at the house of a 
patient, and I think I heard there were two sons.” 
Talk for the sake of talk—anything would do. 

Rachel heard a voice, presumably her own, an¬ 
nouncing : 

“It was the younger son I was with. He had 
temporarily lost his sight. They wanted someone 
to read to him and write his letters. His sister 
couldn’t go herself. We used to go for drives, or 
else I read to him in the woods, on the sands. . . .” 

She stopped herself at last. What on earth was 
she saying? 

Edward had been silent, but now he broke in 
with his strident, jarring laugh. He went on laugh¬ 
ing and laughing, putting his face close to hers as she 
shrank back from him. 

Dr. Cassilis got up and put a hand on his 
arm. 

208 


Monte Felis 


“Come/’ he said sharply. “We'll come back and 
see Rachel to-morrow. She’s tired now.” 

Unfortunately at this moment Mrs. Morland 
chose to appear. Her face was flushed and her 
voice, when she spoke, shrilled with cheerfulness. 

“Have you had a nice talk ?” she inquired brightly. 

“Delightful,” Edward assured her. “Rachel’s 
been giving us the most valuable evidence. She 
won’t be able to shut me up again in a hurry, or if 
she tries it, we shall have the case for the plaintiff 
clear enough.” 

His grating laughter began again. Mrs. Mor¬ 
land looked rather scared, but she decided that what¬ 
ever the joke it was better to join in it. 

“Well, I must say you all seem very merry,” she 
laughed. “It’s nice to see Edward in such spirits, 
isn’t it?” 

o 

Rachel was paralysed, and even Dr. Cassilis 
seemed to have lost his presence of mind. 

“Come, come,” he said at last to Edward, “we 
must be going.” 

He took his brother’s arm, almost pulling him 
towards the door. 

“You can’t shut me up again,” giggled Edward, 
shaking his finger at Rachel. “You and I are go¬ 
ing to have some more talk about this.” 


209 


Monte Felis 


The door closed behind him, but all down the pas¬ 
sage they could hear his dreadful laughter. Mrs. 
Morland looked uncertainly at her niece. 

“I’m afraid seeing you again has just a tiny wee 
bit over-excited him. You must remember that 
he isn’t very strong yet.” 

“He’s mad,” retorted Rachel, hiding her face in 
her hands. “As mad as he has ever been. Why 
on earth do you all try to keep up this pretence?” 

Mrs. Morland looked as if Rachel had slapped her. 

“My dear!” She controlled herself with an ef¬ 
fort, and went on in a tone that hovered between in¬ 
dignation and reproof. “When you talk like that 
of your own husband I hardly know what to say. 
If it was one of the girls I don’t know what I should 
do. I expect you’re over-tired with your journey, 
so we won’t talk any more about it now. Run and 
change quickly, because you know, Uncle John 
doesn’t like us to be late.” 

But it was not till towards the end of dinner 
that Rachel became aware that her aunt was fur¬ 
tively looking at her, not with the air of complacent 
depreciation which she reserved especially for mem¬ 
bers of her husband’s family, and to which her 
niece was well accustomed, but more as she might 
have eyed a Bolshevik had one been pointed out to 


210 


Monte Felis 

her among the diners at the other tables. She 
realized that this had been so ever since Mrs. Mor- 
land had interrupted the scene with Edward, and 
that even then her cheerfulness had been more arti¬ 
ficial than ever. It all portended something un¬ 
pleasant, but they made no difficulty about her going 
to bed when dinner was over. Her uncle had been 
very much as usual. 

“What are you going to do?” Mrs. Morland burst 
out as soon as she was alone with her husband. 
Without waiting for an answer she had tip-toed 
heavily to the door into her bedroom and finding 
nobody in the inner room, had closed it securely. 

“Do about what?” asked her husband without 
looking up from the share list. 

“What I told you before dinner. That man. . . . 
I heard her most distinctly tell Algernon Cassilis. 
... I couldn’t help it because the door was 
open. . . .” 

She seated herself on the opposite side of the fire 
and took a small piece of white knitting from her 
bag. 

“Oh dear, oh dear, if things weren’t difficult 
enough as it was,” she sighed, and shook her head, 
frowning. 

“There’s nothing to be done. It’s Edward’s af- 


211 


Monte Felis 

fair now. I don’t know what you’re worrying 
about,” mumbled Mr. Morland without removing 
his pipe. 

“Oh well, of course if you look at it like that,” 
she replied in a flustered treble. “But I never have 
been comfortable about Rachel. Of course it prob¬ 
ably isn’t anything or she wouldn’t have told Dr. 
Cassilis like that, but you remember how fascinated 
her mother used to get with clergymen and doctors. 
And now if you’d heard the way Edward spoke to 
her, I’m sure I hope he doesn’t mean to do any¬ 
thing.” 

Mr. Morland put down his paper. 

“What can he do?” 

“Oh, I don’t know, but I can’t help feeling dread¬ 
fully worried on the girls’ account. It would be 
so awful for them if he did anything.” 

“Did whatf I wish to God you’d say what you 
mean.” 

“Well, I mean did anything that got into the 
papers—a law case of any kind. . . .” She was 
pink all over, nose and forehead, with distress. 

Mr. Morland hunched about in his chair; he did 
not care to let her see that she was disturbing him. 

“Oh rubbish. Whatever’s put that into your 
head? I don’t know why you couldn’t find out what 


212 


Monte Felis 

she was doing, but it’s no use crying over spilt milk. 
Edward’ll know how to put sense into her. There’s 
nothing wrong with him now, and he’s glad enough 
to get her back. As for that cock-and-bull story of 
what happened last autumn, Cassilis’ own opinion is 
that feeling his self-control going and fearing that 
he might succumb to the temptation to take his own 
life, he went to her for help, and she like a fool, 
instead of trying to quiet him, screamed and fainted. 
Cassilis swears he’s devoted to her.” 

Mrs. Morland’s face puckered up. 

“All the same I wish we hadn’t come here. You 
see there might be something. ... I wish you’d 
heard him. He was talking about evidence and 
plaintiffs just as if he meant to. ...” 

Her voice broke, and she began to hunt for her 
handkerchief. “I know you think me silly, but I 
always think of the children. And it would be so 
awful for them—their own cousin, and us too in it; 
if we’re here, we should be dragged right in. And 
Enid . . . the doctor thinks it will be the end of 
December. . . .” 

Sob, sob, sob. 

“Here, come now, Minna . . . for God’s sake 
stop that nonsense.” He rose from his chair, and 
shook down one trouser leg and then the other. 

213 


Monte Felis 

“We’ll go to-morrow—after lunch if you like. 
You wanted to go to Brighton. It’s not more than 
a couple of hours’ run. I’ll wire for rooms at the 
‘Suburban’; they say the food is all right. Only 
mind you’ll have to be all packed by midday and 
the luggage go on by train with Jackson.” 

When Mrs. Morland had dried her eyes and 
blown her nose, something of her usual placidity 
returned. 

“Yes, dear, certainly. If that’s what you’d like. 
I’m sure it’s better for us to leave them alone a little. 
More considerate you know, and then if everything’s 
all right they can come and stay with us a little 
later on.” 

After all, it wasn’t as if Rachel was her own 
niece, she said to herself as she put away her knit¬ 
ting. But she did not explain even to herself what 
she meant by it. 


214 


Chapter XVII 


T HE rain which had continued intermittently 
through the night, was still holding its own 
against the wind as Rachel made her way 
towards the shore next morning. Whatever the 
weather was like it was preferable to be out of doors 
rather than to remain in the sitting-room, a prey 
to the remorseless scratching of her aunt’s pen. 

Thoughtless visitors have often remarked that it 
is a pity that Boxmouth is so completely severed 
from its beach by the railway, ignoring the fact that 
at least two contractors on the Town Council have 
been made rich and happy by the arrangement, one 
supplying the wrought-iron painted bridges which, 
at frequent intervals, leap high over lines and alight 
on the promenade, while his colleague has burrowed 
noisome white-tiled tunnels for the benefit of the 
unathletic. 

Rachel paused before one of the latter. It was 
plainly ticketed “Way to the Shore”—a destina¬ 
tion signalled to the nose of the pedestrian some 
yards before the notice became legible. In spite of 

215 


Monte Felis 


the wind she chose a bridge. She struggled up 
the steps, her skirt wrapping itself like a winding- 
sheet about her knees, while with one hand she 
clutched her hat, and with the other endeavoured to 
retain possession of a book and an umbrella. 

At the top she paused, out of breath, and looked 
down the flat coast-line. To the south-east the sun 
had put an eye to a keyhole in the clouds, touching 
a patch of green weed into vivid emerald. She 
looked at it with a feeling of gratitude. Like most 
nervously constituted people she was intensely sensi¬ 
tive to weather; if only the sun would come out she 
knew she would be so much braver. But just then 
another cloud broke overhead in a battering scurry 
of rain, which sent her hurrying down the other 
flight of steps to the nearest shelter. 

She chose a side where she could still see the 
green weed, and opened her book. A sheet of paper 
fell out of it and fluttered to the ground. Mechan¬ 
ically she stooped and picked it up. There was 
something written on it in a writing that was un¬ 
familiar to her. 

“My dear Patch. . . 

Maurice’s writing. She had looked at it, and had 
not known it. It must have been an attempt to 
write in the frame someone had sent him. A bad 
216 


Monte Felis 

attempt; in one place he had begun one line on top 
of the former one. Then came a sentence with 
some words left out. 

Up till now it seemed as if she had only thought 
of her own need of him, but the little scribbled bit 
of paper, the mistakes, the helplessness of it, woke 
all the mother-hunger, all the mother-fearfulness in 
her heart. How was it with him? In what state 
had she left him? What harm might the shock of 
finding she had gone have done him? Suppose he 
became blind again, alone in that unfriendly hotel, 
with only Brewster? Why, oh why hadn’t she 
taken Mr. Whittaker into her confidence—at least 
to the extent of giving him an address which would 
find her if. ... If what? Suppose she knew that 
Maurice was ill, was blind again, what could she 
do? Go back to him? Drag him into a scandal 
that would leave her a hopeless impediment between 
him and even his own verv tolerant world, and a 
perpetual source of petty stings and humiliations 
which would come near to maddening him in time? 

She pressed her hands over her eyes. He wasn’t 
ill, he wasn’t blind. She couldn’t believe it, 
couldn’t endure it. He was strong now. But he 
would suffer. Only she who knew him as she knew 
herself, could realize what that suffering would be. 

217 


Monte Felis 


He was no longer the charming, indolent, semi¬ 
invalid of earlier days, childishly wayward one mo¬ 
ment, and childishly happy the next, but wholly lov¬ 
able in all moods. It was another Maurice that 
had waked in those last days; a passionate hot- 
blooded man, seeing only that which he desired, 
primitive in his capacity for blind, unreasoning suf¬ 
fering when it was denied him. It had been no 
ordinary falling in love; such outward attractions as 
she possessed had been hidden from him till almost 
the last. In those long weeks they had spent to¬ 
gether she had made herself a part of his being, so 
that they had come to think with one mind, even as 
they saw with but one pair of eyes, and without 
her he would go a maimed man for the rest of 
his days. 

Suddenly she asked herself if she had not done 
it deliberately. Right away from the very begin¬ 
ning, when she had read Corisande Heaven’s letter, 
had she not even then been jealous of this other 
woman’s power to hurt him—so that she had never 
rested till she had made him her own? 

She had known perfectly well when he was be¬ 
ginning to care for her, probably long before he 
knew it himself, and instead of going away then, 
she had not only stayed with him, hugging the 
218 


Monte Felis 


knowledge in her heart, but had delayed till the 
very last to do what she should have done at the 
beginning, and told him her real position with re¬ 
gard to Edward. Why had she done it? Was it 
cowardice, a loathing of everything that reminded 
her of it, the same that had made her leave the let¬ 
ters from the asylum unopened? Whatever it was, 
the consequences were the same for Maurice. 

She had held his life in her hands and she, who 
had had no thought hard enough for a silly child 
of eighteen, had only taken it to break it again. 

She thought she had reached the limit of her 
capacity to suffer when she left him, but the next 
half-hour was to teach her that beside the fires of 
self-reproach that now consumed her, her former 
state had been peace indeed. Even the thought of 
Maurice became intolerable. For the time being 
every memory was poisoned. What did he feel to¬ 
wards her? Did he not hate her as she deserved 
he should? She had told him nothing. Left no 
word of explanation. She had gone out of his 
life as silently as she had come into it. Perhaps it 
was the only thing she could have done. At least 
he was spared the knowledge that she had gone back 
to Edward. 

She crouched against the side of the shelter, her 

219 


Monte Felis 


head in her hands. There was no hope, no comfort 
anywhere. She dared not look back, and she could 
not bring herself to look forward. 

Footsteps approaching at last made her look up. 
Through the glass screen behind her she saw her 
brother-in-law, coming towards her, alone. For a 
moment she was tempted to stay still and chance his 
passing without seeing her. But it was too late. 
She shut the piece of paper in the book, holding it 
tightly in both hands, and stood up. 

“My dear Rachel, you look . . . Im afraid you 
are still very tired,” he began. 

“I am, rather. How is Edward?” 

It seemed the most suitable thing to say. 

Dr. Cassilis sat down beside her. He had none 
of his brother’s rather florid good looks, his mouth 
was thin and pinched with a life of perpetual self¬ 
refusals, and when, for the time being, his confident 
professional manner was laid aside, his eyes had a 
sad, almost puzzled expression, as if asking quarter 
from a fate that was harsh beyond understanding. 
Now, however, as they looked at Rachel, they were 
both affectionate and eager. 

“Edward is much better, quite himself. He was 
a little bit excited perhaps at seeing you, but to-day, 
he’s quite all right. A good night ... ate an ex- 


220 


Monte Felis 

cellent breakfast. It’s the first time he’s had the 
least symptom of—er—excitement. But that’s eas¬ 
ily accounted for. It seems nothing in the world 
except that of course we mustn’t expect too much 
just at first—or let him be worried at all, or, well you 
understand.” 

“I understand that he is much the same as he 
was twelve months ago. . . . Before that last at¬ 
tack,” replied Rachel slowly. 

“He's perfectly sane if that’s what you mean.” 
There was a sharp note in his voice, which left it 
as he continued. “Dear old fellow, he talked most 
touchingly of you last night after dinner. I wish 
you could have heard him. Said how much he owed 
you and how splendid you’d always been. He 
doesn’t like the idea of his wife doing anything for 
her living; no man does. He made it clear it was 
that—of course, all the rest was only joking. I 
explained to him your reasons for taking this post 
—that it was in order that he should be in greater 
comfort, and he was quite touched. Upon my word 
he was, there were tears in his eyes.” 

There was something very like them in Dr. Cas- 
silis’ eyes as he spoke. Rachel was silent. How 
could she hurt poor Algy? What hope was there 
of making him see what was so patent to her— 


221 




Monte Felis 


that it was all pretence, and that Edward was de¬ 
ceiving everybody except herself? 

“I wanted to see you alone to tell you this,” con¬ 
tinued Algernon, “and also to beg of you to put 
all those unhappy incidents out of your mind, and 
. . . and to show Edward all the affection I know 
you have for him. The poor fellow is so terribly 
sensitive, and—I’m quite sure you didn’t realize 
it—but your manner to him yesterday might have 
struck one as a little cold. I couldn’t help thinking 
it hurt him, and that he was trying to carry it off 
with a little chaff. . . . You’ll forgive me for say¬ 
ing this, because you know how fond I am of both 
of you. No one knows your devotion to Edward 
better than I do. If I were a woman I should be 
just as you are, and of course I know that some¬ 
times the very force of one’s feelings makes it diffi¬ 
cult to express them. But dear old Edward’s dif¬ 
ferent, he’s so very warm-hearted, he doesn’t under¬ 
stand. He needs response, a very great deal of 
response. Now why don’t you leave the hotel, and 
come and join us?” 

Rachel stared fixedly at the sodden sands and the 
mud-coloured complaining sea. There was a buzz¬ 
ing in her ears, and blur before her eyes, but her 
voice rang out sharply: 


222 


Monte Felis 

“If you’re suggesting that I should go back to 
Edward and live with him as his nurse, yes. But if 
you mean as his wife, I can only tell you definitely 
once and for all that I cannot do it.” 

Dr. Cassilis shifted his position so that he could 
see her profile, but she kept her face obstinately 
turned from him. He had been prepared for hesi¬ 
tations and misgivings but hardly for this passion¬ 
ate refusal. There was something in it that he 
didn’t understand—a repulsion that was not alto¬ 
gether fear. The worried look on his tired face 
deepened. 

“You’re assuming a heavier responsibility than 
you quite realize,” he said in a low voice. He hesi¬ 
tated a moment and then added: “You may have 
some motive that I don’t know of, which leads 
you to avoid my poor brother, but I don’t ask for 
your confidence. You may also have had some 
reason for delaying your return . . . and for not 
writing. I don’t want to know any of these things. 
You have come back ... let it stand at that. 
Now, the future is very largely in your hands. On 
my word of honour, I believe that as far as Ed¬ 
ward’s health is concerned, there is no reason what¬ 
ever why you should not do all in your power to 
make him happy.” 


223 


Monte Felis 

Rachel made an attempt to rise, but he put his 
hand on her arm. 

“Stay at the hotel for a week or two, and see for 
yourself, but, above all, remember what I have 
said.” 

She shook her head. 

“It’s no use, Algy, I’ll stay here as long as you 
like. I came back to do that. But for the rest 
—can’t you see he hates me? I think I do him 
harm, I always did, and now he thinks it is I 
who put him in that place.” 

“Oh, that’s rubbish, as I’ve explained to you. 
I’m afraid you’ve got some fixed idea. . . . Well, 
it’s no use arguing. You’ll see for yourself. Only 
. . . it’s not what I’d hoped of you, Rachel.” 

There was a long uncomfortable silence. Dr. 
Cassilis was drawing lines with his stick in a little 
drift of sand near his feet. Rachel sat dumb and 
miserable, afraid to hurt him more if she went 
away. Algy was the hardest of them all to fight. 

“Edward wants to take you for a drive this after¬ 
noon,” he said presently in his ordinary tone. 
“Would a quarter to three be too early for you?” 

“You’ll come, too?” 

“Yes, yes, this time I’ll come.” He sighed. “I 
think it’s going to clear,” he added more hopefully. 
22 4 


Chapter XVIII 


W HEN Rachel reached the hotel she went 
up to the sitting-room. She had had 
breakfast early and gone out before 
the Morlands were astir. 

The room was empty, but on the table stood a 
thermos, and beside it two umbrellas and a walking- 
stick strapped together. On the sofa lay Mrs. Mor- 
land’s fur coat, a rug, and a foot-muff. Her writ¬ 
ing-case, the railway guide, and the small scattered 
objects, such as photographs of the grandchildren, 
two packs of cards, and some library novels which 
had lain about yesterday had all vanished. Was it 
possible that they were going, and so suddenly? 
Any displacement usually .caused Mrs. Morland 
three weeks’ heavy preparation. They always took 
rooms from one fixed date to another. Rachel was 
sure they had spoken of staying at least a fortnight. 
What on earth was the reason? Thank Heaven 
though they were going, it didn’t matter why. 

As she reached this conclusion, her aunt bustled 
in from the bedroom. 

“Oh, is that you, dear? I’ve never seen you all 

225 


Monte Felis 

the morning so I couldn’t tell you of our change of 
plans. You see Uncle John doesn’t think this place 
suits him, it isn’t bracing enough, so we’ve made up 
our minds to move on to Brighton. They say the 
‘Suburban’ is very comfortable, so clean, not a 
speck of dust anywhere. Mrs. Willson goes there 
every spring, and you know what she’s like. I can’t 
really say much for this place. We’ve had to send 
for the big bath towels from home, Uncle John 
can’t stand these little ones. Mrs. Willson partic¬ 
ularly mentioned the bath towels at the ‘Subur¬ 
ban.’ ” 

“I believe the country round is very pretty, Rot- 
tingdean, and those places,” said Rachel, trying to 
show polite interest. 

“I daresay,” Mrs. Morland replied vaguely. “But 
the main thing is that the hotel is really clean ” 

She looked round the room, then touched each of 
the things on the table in turn, as if to make sure 
that they were what they seemed to be. 

“You and Edward must come to us when we get 
home,” she went on without looking at Rachel. 
“I’ve told the servants to expect us on the 27th, 
that’s a Wednesday, so we shall have been away 
just three weeks. Cousin Fanny comes the week 
after for ten days, but when she goes, we can have 
226 


Monte Felis 


you. I know the girls want to see Edward again. 
Let us know, won’t you, how you go on.” 

“Thank you,” said Rachel. “With Edward in 
his present state it’s impossible to make plans. . . . 
As long as Algy can stay with him, I expect we 
shall be here.” 

Mrs. Morland as usual shied away from the sub¬ 
ject of Edward’s health as if it were something in¬ 
delicate. 

“You had better speak to the chambermaid at 
once about your washing if you want it back before 
the end of the week,” she remarked repressively. 
“But I don’t suppose you’ll stay here now we’ve 
gone. It would look rather odd.” 

Rachel was saved the trouble of replying by the 
advent of Mr. Morland, and they all went down to 
lunch. 

At half-past two punctually the car came round, 
after two messages had been sent to ask if it was 
ready. Mason’s embittered expression was enough 
to inform Rachel that he was not only before the 
time at which he had been ordered, but had not been 
permitted to complete his lunch. What a fuss they 
were in. Her aunt was trying to clear her mouth 
of her motor veil in order to kiss her. Her uncle 
looked morose and uncomfortable. 


227 


Monte Felis 


“Write to us and be sure to tell us everything,” 
said Mrs. Morland for the fifth time running. 
“You’re going out with Edward this afternoon?” 
Her face suddenly cleared. “Oh, that’s lovely. 
John, do you hear? Rachel and Edward are going 
for a nice drive. And if any letters should come for 
us you’ll be sure . . .” 

Her voice died on the wind as the car rolled off. 

They had hardly gone before Edward and Algy 
appeared. Edward had changed his mind about a 
drive and wanted to go for a walk instead. Rachel 
was surprised to find she could look at him without 
any particular feeling to-day, her mind seemed 
empty of everything. She was like a person watch¬ 
ing a stupid play which she has seen many times 
before. 

They turned down a road leading to the sand¬ 
hills beyond which lay the golf links, they would 
go for a walk like this every afternoon to their 
lives’ ends, along asphalt roads, with drifts of sand 
in the gutters and smug little red brick villas, each 
with a tiny garden bordering the sides. Rachel 
supposed that they would take one of them them¬ 
selves in time, and she would become one of 
those ageless, dead-faced women, to be seen round 
the provision shops in the Main Street, or tramp- 
228 


Monte Felis 

ing the promenade in the wake of a Bath-chair. 

The sun, after one or two changes of mind, had 
come forth with the apparent intention of spending 
the rest of his allotted hours with them. Soon the 
little red houses gave place to large ones combining 
all the features of gentlemen’s country seats in about 
an acre of “grounds.” Then quite abruptly they 
came on the wide spaces of the links, and beyond a 
grey ribbon of sea. 

Edward had made no reference to the day before. 
He seemed cheerful and reasonable, so that Rachel 
began to understand better how Dr. Cassilis fed his 
illusions. At first he was rather silent, only put¬ 
ting in a word here and there, while his brother 
bore most of the weight of the conversation, but 
presently he began to talk very amusingly, as he 
could when he chose. He started by making fun of 
his brother’s methods of playing golf. His wit, 
as usual, was arrogant and not particularly kind, 
but Algy was far too happy to care what he said, 
as long as he was amused, and even Rachel laughed 
once or twice at his description of poor Algy’s com¬ 
bination of ungainliness, short-sight, and desperate 
earnestness. Presently he passed on to the Mor- 
lands. 

“For God’s sake keep those relations of yours 

229 


Monte Felis 


chained up, Rachel, I never could stand them, and 
as years go on they don’t improve. I wish you’d 
cut all connection with them. They’re not the sort 
of people we can introduce to our friends. You 
ought to be able to see it.” 

“They’ve gone away this afternoon,” said Rachel. 
“All the same, it’s a pity you don’t like them, they’re 
very fond of you.” 

“Oh, well, of course, you can see they’re pleased 
enough with the connection. Lord! They gave me 
precious little peace until I married you. I’ve told 
you that story, haven’t I, Algy?” 

“Yes, yes,” replied his brother. “I think we’d 
better get on to the road. Those people are waiting 
to drive.” 

Edward looked round with a scowl at two men 
who waited with ill-concealed impatience by two 
little pinched-up heaps of sand. He stood quite still 
for a moment, looking from them in the direction 
of the next hole and back again, then he began to 
walk away, Algy was on ahead, Rachel preparing 
to follow. Suddenly Edward wheeled round and 
shouted: 

“To your right, Rachel, quick.” 

Rachel started from a dream and mechanically 
ran in the direction he had indicated. There was a 
230 


Monte Felts 


shout, an exclamation from Dr. Cassilis, and some¬ 
thing that seemed like a bullet whizzed between 
her ear and her shoulder and fell with a little thud 
some yards ahead. Edward turned on her, livid 
with anger. 

“Why weren’t you quicker, you fool?” And 
then, seeing his brother’s face of blank astonish¬ 
ment, he mastered himself with an effort: “I told 
her it was coming on her right,” he said quickly. 

The man who had driven the ball came running 
up. 

“If you hadn’t shouted at her, sir,” he began 
indignantly. “She was all right where she was. 
What on earth you thought you were doing . . .” 

“You damn well mind your own business . . .” 
roared Edward. “I’ll do what I damn well like 
with my own wife. There’s been enough inter¬ 
ference. . . .” 

The man was beginning an equally heated an¬ 
swer about by-laws and having the whole thing up 
before the committee, when an odd expression be¬ 
gan to dawn on his face. He stared at Edward for 
a moment, and then, raising his cap to Rachel, 
walked away. Edward looked as if he had half 
a mind to pursue him, but instead gave a hunch of 
his shoulders, and strode off to the sandhills. 


2 3 I 


Monte Felis 


Rachel had stood by white-faced and staring. 

“You must not mind what he said,” whispered 
Dr. Cassilis hurriedly. “He was frightened out of 
his life; that man could drive a ball through a 
brick wall. It might very easily have killed you.” 

“I know that,” said Rachel, with cold, stiff lips. 

But when he turned to go after Edward she pas¬ 
sively followed him. She knew now for certain 
that her hour was not far off; that he had failed 
this time only made it more sure he would try again, 
and soon. She felt a strange numbness which left 
her without either power or will to resist. If she 
could have been herself, have interested and amused 
him for a time she might have gained to-day. In 
the old days she had often beguiled him from his 
furies by turning his mind to his triumphs, real or 
imaginary, or by inventing complimentary things 
which she told him she had heard said of him. But 
now, even if she could have roused herself from this 
paralysing lethargy, the thought of these harem 
methods revolted her. It was coming sooner or 
later. Of what use was her life to her that she 
should want to prolong it? 

Again she felt as if she were at a play which 
she had seen many times before. She had been 
mistaken in fancying it went on for a long time, 
232 


Monte Felis 


in reality it would be over quite soon. Her brain 
had begun to act quite as if it were somebody else’s 
telling her what was going to happen next, and what 
she was to do. Everything seemed clear and pre¬ 
cise to her, so that she stopped and read the label 
on an empty stout bottle which was sticking end 
up out of the sand. She remembered having been 
made to drink stout by a doctor. She used to have 
it at eleven o’clock every morning with a wafer 
biscuit. However carefully you poured it, it made 
a nasty stain on the tray-cloth. A sodden old boot, 
washed up by the tide ? Or left by some tramp and 
soaked in yesterday’s rain? Yesterday was the day 
she had come here, and to-day was the day her uncle 
and aunt had gone away. . . . Even that seemed a 
long time ago. Why had they gone? Something 
about the washing? She remembered something 
about the washing; it was a difficult thing to get it 
back in some hotels . . . and they did it so badly 
she had had to speak about the way they tore his 
shirts. Hadn’t Brewster said there were two col¬ 
lars short this week? And his handkerchiefs, one 
had come back in two pieces. It was a shame; he 
had such beautiful fine things. Surely it was get¬ 
ting chilly; he ought to go in. It was a bad sign 
when the sea made that moaning sound. 


233 


Monte Felis 


Somebody spoke. Edwardf How came he. 
. . . Then she remembered. 

"Here, we’ve had enough of this, let’s go home.” 
He had been flinging pebbles against a strip of rock, 
but now he seemed suddenly to tire of it. 

"Right,” agreed Dr. Cassilis, "we’ll walk back 
along the shore.” 

Edward’s ill-humour seemed to have vanished. 
He walked between the other two, talking and laugh¬ 
ing about funny things he had heard in the course 
of his professional career, incredible things which 
people had done for years and years and never been 
found out, especially cases when the wife had been 
the victim of the husband or the reverse. It was 
all so lightly and rationally told, that Dr. Cassilis 
laughed frequently, and rather meaninglessly from 
sheer relief. He noticed that Edward addressed 
most of what he said in a chaffing kind of way to 
Rachel, and kept turning his head as if he were 
smiling at her. 

If only she would make an effort and shake off 
this imbecile dread of him. It Avas that that was 
doing all the harm by creating an atmosphere in 
which every little incident was magnified into some¬ 
thing tremendous. He had been sorry for her at 
first, because he saw how genuine it was, but now 
234 


Monte Felis 

he was losing patience. She was undoing every¬ 
thing he had done. Edward had not shown a sign 
of temper or excitability till she came. There 
was nothing for it, he must leave them to them¬ 
selves more. As long as he was there to appeal 
to, she would make no effort to exercise her self- 
control. 

But when he tried to drop behind them, there 
was Rachel looking round at him with that almost 
idiotic absence of all expression on her face that 
goes with acute terror. His anger with her grew 
till she absorbed all his attention. Once or twice 
he saw her stumble as if her legs refused to bear 
her. He ceased to pay any heed to Edward, or he 
might have noticed an odd change in his voice, and 
that he was talking very persistently, no longer 
about law cases, but about their aunt who had been 
killed by a train. 

“It was over instantly,” he was saying. “There 
she was, a hale sound woman, tall and well-dressed 
just as you are, and then ... all in an instant— 
rags, blood, bits of hair sticking to the wheels. 
She’d been wearing one of those little velvet hats, 
toques, you call them, don’t you? They couldn’t 
see it—it was all smashed up with her head. So 
they buried it altogether. I remember our coach- 

235 


Monte Felis 

man telling us. He’d been on the station and 
seen it. . . 

They had reached the first footbridge over the 
railway. A man had a small newspaper stand at 
the foot of it, on the esplanade side. 

“You two go on to the hotel,” Dr. Cassilis said, 
“I’ll catch you up in a minute. I want to get an 
evening paper.” There was a click overhead as a 
signal fell. 

“Right oh,” replied Edward cheerfully, taking 
hold of Rachel’s arm. She looked over her shoul¬ 
der at her brother-in-law, but he was absorbed in 
the papers. Her voice only rattled in her throat. 
Edward’s fingers were like steel, numbing her arm 
from elbow to wrist. Maurice had often held her 
arm, too, just in the same place; it seemed funny. 
She ceased to see anything distinctly, and yet she 
didn’t quite faint; she knew she mustn’t do that. 
After the first two steps she no longer moved de¬ 
liberately—her feet went on from step to step of 
their own volition. There was a noise that grew 
louder and louder in her ears, perhaps the train 
which was coming down the line. Edward was 
laughing, she could hear him through all the other 
noise. 

“And the joke of it was they always thought it 
236 


Monte Felis 

was suicide . . . ‘while of unsound mind’ and all 
that tosh.” 

There was no one else on the bridge, even if 
she managed to scream the engine would drown her 
voice. At the top of the steps her knees failed 
her, but now his arm was round her waist, holding 
her upright, moving her forward, she had seen 
people who fainted in church propelled like that. 
He was pushing her towards the railings. She 
tried to speak to him, but her throat contracted, her 
mouth fell open, she tried, but could not shut it. 
She w r as against the rails, and he was trying to lift 
her, but she had thrust her foot as far as it would 
go between the ironwork. There was only just 
room, when she turned it sideways it couldn’t be 
pulled back. Her hands were clenched on the hand¬ 
rail but he struck them off. The train was very 
near now. The line seemed to heave up so that it 
was coming straight in her face. Edward was 
dragging at her waist, wrenching at her, twisting 
her, jerking her. Her foot, her foot, she screamed 
with the pain. She would have drawn it out if she 
could and made an end, but it was stuck firm. The 
train was roaring on her now. Footsteps running 
from both sides of the bridge. 

“Maurice, Maurice,” she heard somebody call. 

237 


Monte Felis 

Smoke and steam filled her eyes and mouth. The 
awful tugging at her waist had suddenly ceased 
as something big and heavy rose above her head, 
hung for a fraction on the rail, and then went over 
into the blinding vapour that rose to meet it. 


238 

1 


Chapter XIX 


B Y the morning after Rachel left him, Mau¬ 
rice was down with a sharp attack of fever, 
which for days kept him hovering on the 
borders of semi-delirium, alternately trying to get 
out of bed with the intention of catching the first 
train for Paris, and, when his strength failed, or¬ 
dering Brewster to go and find Mrs. Cassilis be¬ 
cause he wanted to speak to her. 

The first moment he could stand he would follow 
her to Crampton, or wherever she had gone. He 
would set an inquiry agent to work, if there was no 
other way. He didn’t care for a whole army of 
Morlands, he would break into a convent if it came 
to that. She had run away from him because she 
could not trust herself. Let him see her again and 
all would be well. He had been ten thousand times 
a fool not to rush her off her feet right away; if 
he had lost her he had only his imbecile hesitations 
to thank. What on earth would keep them apart? 
A barbarous law, as insane as the people it was 
framed to protect. 


239 


Monte Felis 


Then he would get out of bed and begin to wan¬ 
der about the room, trying to remember as well as 
his swimming head would let him, what it was he 
had meant to do. To find Rachel, to find Rachel, 
that was what it was. It always came round to the 
point when he was forced to sit down on the chair 
by the dressing-table, and then his head would go 
down on his arms. 

How he was even going to try to live without 
her ? 

And yet when the longed-for day of departure 
came, it seemed that in parting with these tangible 
associations he lost the last shred of her. So much 
so that to the bewilderment of Senhor Gongalves he 
asked him what he would take for the sitting-room 
furniture, and then before the former had recov¬ 
ered sufficiently to consider how much he dared ask, 
said he wouldn’t have it at any price. Wouldn’t 
every sight of the beastly things remind him that he 
was alone? 

But on the ship, another mood took him, his 
thoughts began to turn to India, if he could not find 
Rachel that at least remained. He had not looked 
at a paper since she left, but a man he sat next at 
dinner had said there was more trouble brewing. 
The doctors would pass him now. If he couldn’t 
240 


Monte Felis 


have Rachel, he would clear out of England by the 
first boat he could get, and never come back again. 
One day he discovered that he was counting less and 
less on finding Rachel and what he called getting her 
to listen to reason. The more he thought about it 
the more the conviction pressed on him that Rachel 
was stronger than he had chosen to admit. She 
had once spoken very hotly about a woman for 
whom a man had thrown up his career and most 
other desirable things. He had tried to argue that 
if two people loved each other nothing else mat¬ 
tered. ‘"But she didn't love him. Can’t you see 
that if she had done, she couldn’t have let him do 
it?” she had indignantly persisted, and he had been 
powerless to shake her. And now if that was how 
she felt about it. . . . Perhaps if he had still been 
blind and helpless. . . . She would never have left 
him, then. 

Well, there was no harm in going to see a good 
lawyer and finding out exactly how they stood. 
He would do that, and then if there was any rea¬ 
sonable prospect of freeing her, he would go and 
put the whole thing to her. 

On his arrival in London he found that his sister 
was back at her house in Curzon Street, and in 
the first glow of her engagement to Lord Charles- 

241 


Monte Felis 

worth. It was a relief to find that she was far too 
preoccupied to question him about his doings or to 
ask what had become of his secretary. 

“Darling, how lovely it is to see you again, and 
not a bit disfigured/’ she exclaimed when he walked 
into her sitting-room the morning after his arrival. 
A footman was waiting for orders, and she con¬ 
tinued to open notes and scribble others as she talked. 
“What’s this telegram? Oh ... no answer. We 
shall be eight to dinner not ten. I shall send you 
in with this new Argentine girl, Maurice. I’ll tell 
you all about her presently. . . . Say I shall want 
the car again at half-past four. I’m not at home 
to anybody except Lord Charles worth and Major 
Bannister. Yes, I’m going out to lunch, but I shall 
be back by three. . . . That’s all, Pearson. You’re 
coming too, Maurice. The Havinghams, awful 
people, but one has to know them. There are three 
daughters, one’s not bad, stiff with money of course 
. . . that’s why, so to speak. Oh, but that Argen¬ 
tine. . . . Well, I haven’t time now; anyhow, mind 
you make an impression. I’ve told them to send 
for Brewster and your things. Why didn’t you 
come last night? I was out, but the servants ex¬ 
pected you. I really must see something of you 
before you’re off again. Ring the bell, dear. Do 
242 


Monte Felis 


you mind? I must have Miss Brown up and get 
rid of some of these letters. Don’t forget, the car 
will be round at a quarter-past one. And now, dar¬ 
ling, I must send you away.” 

Maurice betook himself to a dingy little back 
room, overlooking a mews. It had been his late 
brother-in-law’s refuge when the honest struggle 
he made to turn himself into a man about town had 
been temporarily defeated by an overwhelming 
nostalgia for sloppy shabby coats, boots clogged 
with clay, and a lark singing freedom in high 
heaven. Poor old Jack, his honest red-faced pres¬ 
ence seemed to linger among the battered pipes and 
prints of a midnight steeple-chase, ridden in night¬ 
shirts. Maurice wished he were here now. Not 
that he would probably have anything to suggest; 
Jack was not resourceful, also in spite of the sin- 
cerest intention to abstain from doing so, he would 
inevitably have told Patch all about it before the 
day was out. But even with that risk Maurice felt 
it would have been good to have him over there in 
that other shabby leather chair, knocking out his 
pipe against the grate and saying “damned hard 
luck” as he stared into the bowl instead of at the 
other speaker. He could have told Jack things he 
couldn’t tell any of his own family—Archie, good 

243 


Monte ¥elis 


Lord, no—and Jack in his own dim way would have 
understood. 

He had already spent an hour with a lawyer, en¬ 
deavouring to persuade him that whatever the law 
might be, there must be some way of getting round 
it. The lawyer after treating him at first with 
tolerant amusement became exasperated and showed 
an inclination to find his professional honour im¬ 
pugned. 

“Of course, as I said before, your friend, Mrs. 
X, as we will call her, could probably get a judicial 
separation,” he remarked stiffly, “but in that 
case. . . .” 

“What the h-. I mean what in thunder is 

the use of a judicial separation to a woman who’s 
already got her husband locked up—they’re as sepa¬ 
rated as they can be.” Maurice had exploded. 

The lawyer who had already explained the virtues 
of the arrangement more than once, looked at his 
clock and drummed his fingers on his blotting-pad. 

Maurice felt all the fight go out of him. 

“Sorry to have bothered you for nothing,” he 
muttered, taking up his hat and stick. “Er—is 
this what I owe you?” 

The lawyer became another person. 

“Ah . . . yes. Many thanks, many thanks. Of 


244 




Monte Felis 


course one needn’t absolutely despair. Human life 
has its limits. . . . People die even when they’re 
wanted to. I—er, gather the lady wishes to marry 
again ?” 

“She does,” said Maurice, “and I’m dashed if I 
can see why she shouldn’t.” 

The swing doors shut behind him with a sound 
like a long sigh as he slowly made his way down 
the dirty stone steps which he had run up so lightly. 
The lower he went the lower sank his spirits, until 
by the time he reached the street he realized how 
much he had counted on this interview. For a mo¬ 
ment he was half disposed to try somebody else— 
to go on seeing all the lawyers in London till he 
found one who would say what he wanted him to 
say. But after all what was the use of it? This 
man had only said what Whittaker had said, what 
all the books of reference he had been able to find 
in the club last night had said. 

What was left? Nothing but to get away as 
soon as possible before he was driven off his head in 
Patch’s whirligig. He rang up his doctor and found 
to his relief that he could see him the following 
morning. 

Maurice had looked on the interview with his 

2 45 


Monte Felis 


doctor so much as a matter of form, that he went 
through the examination almost absent-mindedly. 
He could see as well as ever, and it only remained 
to have the fact officially recognized in order to ob¬ 
tain his release. 

“That’s all, I suppose? I can get the first boat 
that’s going?’’ he asked when the doctor had ap¬ 
parently come to the end of his tests. 

The doctor fidgeted with the instrument in his 
hand. He wondered why this young man, who 
seemed to have been born to the best that England 
could offer, should be so desperately anxious to re¬ 
turn to the unsavoury spot where his regiment was 
located. It seemed in tune with the general con¬ 
trariness of things that there was no sort of ques¬ 
tion of letting him go. 

The sight had returned, it was true, he said, 
hesitatingly, but that wasn’t all. The trouble had 
been mainly nervous, and even now his whole nerv¬ 
ous system was in a bad state—in short, he seemed 
in a rather strung-up condition. If he went out 
now at the worst season of the year, overwork— 
overstrain of any kind might bring on recurrent at¬ 
tacks of blindness without the least warning and a 
strong possibility of permanent trouble. 

He told his patient this, rather curtly, because he 
246 


Monte Felis 


was sorry for him and didn’t know how to say so. 

“Then I’ll have to leave the service?” Maurice 
gasped. 

“Well, I’m rather afraid you will, unless you can 
get an exchange into something here. In my opin¬ 
ion you’ll never be safe to go East again. I’m sur¬ 
prised this Portuguese trip didn’t do you more good, 
unless you’ve been overdoing it since you came back. 
When did you get back, by the way? The day 
before yesterday? Ah well, that’s not long. Why 
don’t you go to Norway for a few months’ fishing? 
Nothing like fishing for the nerves. Get out of 
London anyhow, and do your best just to be free 
and happy and not think about anything, that's my 
cure.” 

Maurice found himself in the street, walking 
mechanically towards Cavendish Square. He was 
too much stunned to realize more than that the whole 
aspect of his life had been turned upside down. 
Rachel had gone and now his profession had gone. 
It was something of a surprise when he came face 
to face with a house where he sometimes dined and 
found it still standing in its place. Small facts, like 
gnats, each with its tiny sting, buzzed about his 
brain. He wouldn’t need those polo boots he had 
ordered on the way here, or those new drill uni- 

247 


Monte Felis 


forms. He had given Brewster notice, and had 
spoken to a man he had met at dinner last night about 
taking him, but now he had better keep him himself. 

He stood irresolutely at the edge of the pave¬ 
ment staring at the traffic passing up and down 
Oxford Street. Where was he going? He didn’t 
know. He thought of what the doctor had said. 
Fishing in Norway? It was a savourless prospect 
that raised no appetite. Go down to Greyladies? 
Every room in the house, every corner of the gar¬ 
den had played some part in his dreams of a future 
shared with Rachel. 

He presently found himself wandering down 
Bond Street with no very clear idea how he had 
come there. A stream of people going into a con¬ 
fectioner’s suggested that it must be somewhere 
near lunch time. He wasn’t hungry, didn’t feel as 
if he ever would be—but perhaps if he ate some¬ 
thing he wouldn’t feel so light-headed. He thought 
there was a little place not far off down one of the 
side streets, where he wouldn’t meet anybody he 
knew. 

He strolled on, pausing from time to time to look 
vaguely in shop windows. There a silver basket 
full of heliotrope and forget-me-nots with a big 
mauve and blue bow in a florist’s. It was just 
248 


Monte Felis 


what he would have ordered for Rachel, on her 
birthday. At Boucheron’s he saw the perfect ring 
he would have sent with it. 

As he turned away from the window, his brother 
came out of the shop and beckoned with his stick 
to a bright purple coupe. Archie was about the last 
person he wanted to see, but fortunately or other¬ 
wise the latter’s attention was recalled to the shop by 
a dark highly coloured lady, with improbable bushes 
of fair hair on either side of her face who screamed 
from the doorway: 

“Archie! Come back and settle with the man. 
It’s the rubies I’ve chosen.” And Archie trotted 
obediently back again. 

Maurice plunged rather heedlessly into the traffic. 
No wonder Patch was in a fuss. Archie looked 
like a trapped bear. If he only got off this time it 
might be a lesson to him. But what on earth . . . 
well Archie would think him quite as much of a fool 
if it came to that. 

When he got back to Curzon Street he was told 
that his sister wanted to see him as soon as he came 
in. They had telephoned to his club and various 
other places but had failed to find him. 

He went quickly to her room. Patch at home and 
alone at five o’clock betokened something serious. 

249 


Monte Fells 


He wondered if she had dismissed Charlesworth, or 
had found out something more disastrous about 
Archie, or if one of the children down at Revals 
Langley was seriously ill, and speculated on the 
use she intended to put him to in any of these con¬ 
tingencies. 

She was sitting at her writing-table but swung 
round as he came into the room. Without speak¬ 
ing she held out an open telegram. 

“Sir Alexander stroke this morning condition 
critical Dawson,” Maurice read. “This means we 
shall have to go down.” 

“Hum. Well, I don’t know. I suppose some¬ 
body ought to. I’ve had another wire since. I 
don’t gather there’s any immediate danger.” 

Maurice waited for her to produce it, but she 
did not do so. 

“He’s not been well all winter,” she went on. 
“Worrying about Archie mostly. I can’t think 
how he gets hold of things.” 

“Have you told Archie about this wire?” 

“I’ve done the only thing I could. Sent a note 
to his rooms, and told everybody I could think of, 
to send him here if they ran across him. He never 
turned up to lunch after promising faithfully he 
would. I suppose you’ve no idea where he is?” 

250 


Monte Felis 


“He’s bound to get your note when he goes home 
to dress,” said Maurice evading a direct reply. 

Mrs. Reval sighed. 

“I very much doubt if he’ll go to Watersmeeting, 
and if he does the sight of him is enough to make 
father worse. He’s perfectly frantic about this 
Slayback woman—says Archie’s quite fool enough 
to marry her. I believe Aunt Tosh tells him things, 
she wants Archie for Phyllis Middlehouse. It 
looks as if you’d have to go, Maurice.” 

“Aren’t you coming, too?” 

Patch was running her pencil up and down a 
big silver framed engagement card. 

“Of course I am. . . . The very first minute I 
can. From Saturday to Tuesday anyhow. You 
see it isn’t as if it were urgent.” 

Maurice said nothing. Something in his silence 
made her uncomfortable. 

“You won’t be going to India this very minute, 
I suppose?” she inquired irritably. “Uncle Podge 
can always get you an extension.” 

Maurice hesitated. He shrank, as most people 
do, from hearing himself put facts into words. 

“I’m not going at all. My eyes won’t pass. I 
. . . I suppose I shall have to leave the service.” 

Patch stared at him. 


251 


Monte Felis 


“Leave the army? But you can see all right?” 

Maurice repeated what the doctor had said. 

She listened superficially, her mind busied with 
the general aspects of the case. 

“It’s an awful pity, of course,” she remarked 
when he had finished. “You would have been 
bound to get on with all of us behind you. There’s 
a chance, though it mustn’t be talked of, that we 
may get India next year, in which case, of course, 
Harry would have had you on his staff. But after 
all, perhaps it’s hardly worth worrying about it. 
The army’s no career for a white man nowadays. 
I always wished you’d gone into diplomacy; per¬ 
haps it’s not too late. . . . Anyhow, this makes it 
absolutely simple about father—you can go up there 
for a week and come back again later on.” 

Maurice walked across the room and took up a 
railway guide. He stood with his back to her, 
fluttering the leaves. He had always fancied that 
when Patch had time to think of him she was really 
very fond of him—not as fond as she was of Archie, 
but a very serviceable everyday kind of fondness, 
that would stand a good deal of wear and tear. 
But it looked as if this had all been so much moon¬ 
shine. She neither cared nor took the trouble to 
understand what the doctor’s verdict meant to him. 
252 


Monte Felis 

He thought of her perfect face, the beautiful vel¬ 
vety depths of her eyes, which seemed to hold the 
very spirits of love and laughter and tears. Tears! 
Patch had never shed a tear in her life, as far as 
he could remember, except when she was in a tem¬ 
per. All that she now saw in his misfortune was 
that it would save her a tiresome journey and a 
prolonged dose of Watersmeeting. How much, 
after all, did she really care about her father? To 
his younger son he had always been harsh, some¬ 
times unjust, and once or twice downright cruel, 
but he had spoilt his two elder children scandalously, 
so people said, and they in return had provided the 
only instruments of discipline his hard self-willed 
old heart had ever encountered. Now his death 
would mean little more to one than the entire renew¬ 
ing of her wardrobe, and to the other an increased 
facility to run up bills. 

Maurice shut up the guide and took up a telegraph 
form instead. 

'Til go to-night by the 7.15. I shall sleep at 
Carlisle, and they can send a car for me next morn¬ 
ing,” he said shortly. 

Patch’s colour rose. 

“To-night. But I told you I’d had this other 
wire saying there was no immediate danger. These 

253 


Monte ¥elis 

strokes go on for months, and you won’t be able to 
see him if you go. To-morrow’ll be heaps of time. 
I must have you to-night. It’s quite a little quiet 
thing, or of course I should have put it off. I 
can’t get another man at the last minute like this, you 
never know where they are nowadays.” 

Maurice met her indignant eyes with irritating 
calm. She said to herself that people who didn’t 
know him thought he looked so sympathetic,, but 
when it came to appealing to his feelings he was 
really much harder than Archie. 

“I’ll ring up old Percy Lulworth—he’ll always 
come,” was all he would vouchsafe. 

His sister was seriously disturbed. He had been 
in a queer state ever since he came back, at one min¬ 
ute in ill-assumed high spirits, and at another in 
the depths of depression. He was “nervy” too. It 
seemed as if he had got something on his mind. 
Something must have gone pretty wrong. It wasn’t 
his sight, because he had been perfectly happy about 
that until he saw the doctor. What about that 
secretary woman? Now she came to think of it, 
he had never mentioned her. What had become of 
her? It was so tiresome of her to have turned out 
so much younger than she had at first appeared— 
almost an imposture. Perhaps she had tried to get 
254 


Monte Felis 

up an affaire with him. If Maurice hadn’t felt like 
it, he would have made the most frightful mess of 
things. It was a pity in some ways that he wasn’t 
more like Archie, who had frequently and super¬ 
fluously informed his sister that in Maurice’s shoes 
he would have contrived to spend a very pleasant 
winter. 

The best thing to do was to get him settled down 
with some really nice girl. It was a pity he was so 
tiresome about the Argentine, but after all there 
were heaps of others. 


255 


Chapter XX 


S IR ALEXANDER BANNISTER lay in the 
great four-post bed, in the room with the 
Grinling Gibbons mantelpiece, in which his 
ancestors had been born and for the most part had 
died; since, in the days of the first James, they had 
vacated the older part of the castle. Sir Alexander 
had been born there himself, one cold winter night 
more than seventy years before, and there in that 
high-backed chair beside the fire, where his younger 
son was sitting now, he too had sat through one 
long night waiting for his own father to die. 

The old man had made a hard fight of it, lying 
there helplessly cursing the nurses, the doctors, his 
own son or anyone else who came within reach, 
as long as he could speak. And now that same 
son was lying in his place and remembering his 
own impatience of all this waiting and delay which 
was playing the deuce with his plans. Why the 
devil couldn't the old man have done and make an 
end of it ? He had had his whack. It was time to 
go, since go he must, and let other and stronger 
hands take the reins. 

256 


Monte Felis 

His children, too, probably thought he was an 
unconscionable time in getting out of their way. 
Where were they? Where was Patricia—“little 
Patch” Archie had called her when he could hardly 
speak. She had too many of her own concerns to 
find time for him. They had said she was coming, 
but he didn’t believe it. Archie ? He wouldn’t 
think of Archie, it made him have that funny feel¬ 
ing in his head again. 

Tears of self-pity welled up in his eyes and 
trickled down the furrows of his cheeks, with a 
cold tickling sensation; but he could not move his 
hand to brush them away, or make any sound ex¬ 
cept a guttural mumbling. He was just a poor 
lonely old man. No single being would feel any 
real grief at his death, any more than he had felt 
any when his own father died. He was quite sure 
he was going to die, though that fool of a nurse- 
woman had told him firmly that he was much better. 
It was all too exactly like that other time, only 
now it was he who was in the bed. And that fel¬ 
low there by the fire—he could just see the top of 
his black head above the chair—what was he think¬ 
ing about? Was he, too, impatiently waiting for 
death to release him to return again to his own am¬ 
bitions and pleasures? His father vaguely won- 

257 


Monte Pelis 


dered what these were. He had always been a 
queer silent chap; you couldn’t tell what he was at. 
Why had he come now instead of the other two?— 
this other one, whom he had never thought of more 
than he could help; born in the last and most miser¬ 
able stage of a discordant marriage. He had never 
pretended to care much about him. He was alto¬ 
gether too much his mother’s child. 

He had been a fool to marry a woman of mixed 
blood, as she was. His own father had warned 
him—putting it coarsely as he would have done 
about his own short-horns. It had all come from 
that. But he had been besotted by her black eyes, 
and her almost Oriental grace. Well he had found 
out soon enough what that all meant—first her in¬ 
fernal jealousy, and after a time his own. 

This boy was too like her . . . too like that for¬ 
eigner cousin of hers. . . . He felt a kind of exas¬ 
peration at being forced to notice him now, after 
all these years of successfully ignoring him. 
Now, too, when his brain no longer seemed his 
own, but must needs start trying rusty keys in old 
locks. 

A slight haze seemed to be gathering in the room 
•—the mist which rose on summer evenings from 
the moat, of course—not those thwarted shadows 
258 


Monte Felis 


which had bided their time all these years, now to 
assail him in his helplessness. 

A log burnt through, fell between the dogs on the 
hearth. Maurice stood up to replace it. He looked 
at the bed and thought his father was asleep. He 
always seemed to be as far as his son could judge, 
though the nurse daily reported that he was “a lot 
brighter.” He had given no sign that he recog¬ 
nized Maurice. What on earth had been the use 
in his coming here—except to give countenance to 
Dawson, and issue such orders as were not in any¬ 
body else’s province. 

Every afternoon he religiously spent an hour in 
this chair while the nurse had her rest, but he had 
thought so little about his father all his life that he 
would sometimes find himself wondering why he 
was there. The old man had been a dreaded but 
seldom visible fury that had haunted the back¬ 
ground of his childhood, and dimly pursued him 
through the increasing years till his inheritance of 
his mother’s small property had snapped the only 
real tie between them. He couldn’t pretend to feel 
much now, if anything. He was here because there 
was no particular reason why he should be anywhere 
else. Here, at any rate, nobody bothered him. He 
was free to be as miserable as he felt. 


259 


Monte Felis 


Dim memories of his mother came to him as he 
sat watching the flames. There had been one after¬ 
noon when she had sat, all huddled up, in this same 
chair, and he had been beside her on the rug, play¬ 
ing with a little horse and cart—making it travel 
to the fender and then pulling it back again with a 
piece of string. He hadn’t paid much attention to 
her, and it had startled him when she stooped and 
gathered him into her arms, with such sudden vehe¬ 
mence that one of the wheels had been broken off the 
cart. It must have been a day or two before she 
died, but of that he remembered nothing—only, that 
since that day no woman had ever kissed him with 
that passionate craving hunger, till Rachel had bid¬ 
den him good-bye. He wished he could remember 
more. No one had ever been able to tell him much. 
Lady Bannister had been very lovely, they all said. 
He could see that for himself, from the Carolus 
Duran portrait of her in the white saloon. People 
also said, but more guardedly, that she had been 
very gay and her husband a hard man. The old 
caretaker at Greyladies had spoken of her as a wild 
limb of a girl, and all the gentlemen a-coming court¬ 
ing. Archie and Patch could only supply an in¬ 
distinct medley. The former remembered her box¬ 
ing his ears with a fan when he had broken a scent- 
260 



Monte Felis 

bottle, and the latter, with relish: “That she and 
Father used to fight like cat and dog.” She was 
obviously a far less cherished memory to them than 
the pet animals that lay in the little cemetery in the 
park. 

It was twenty-eight years now since she had been 
carried down to the big vault in the shadow of the 
church—a cold, grim place such as those dancing 
feet would never have sought of their own choice. 
If she had lived, how different it might all have 
been. If she hadn’t been able to stand his father, 
he, Maurice, would have taken her away, and he 
and she would have made a home together such as 
he had never known, and now never would know. 
He was sure she was the kind of woman who would 
have understood all about Rachel. 

The nurse had come into the room, and then 
begun to run about in a flurried way. She was 
telling one of the servants something at the door. 
To fetch the doctor? She was always starting these 
scares. Now she was back at the bed—and then 
speaking to him. Hadn’t he noticed anything? 

Maurice too walked over to the bed. Then he 
turned away again, and went downstairs. 

Patch and Archie arrived the day following Sir 

261 


Monte Felis 

Alexander’s death—the former excited and tearful. 
If she had only known it was so serious she would 
have come at once. Why hadn't Maurice let her 
know? What was that idiot Dawson about? Sud¬ 
den at the last ? Doctors ought to know when these 
things were likely to happen. In the midst of her 
lamentations, she found a chance of whispering that 
the wire had come just in the nick of time to snatch 
Archie from Mrs. Slayback’s motor on its way to 
the Westminster Registry Office. Archie himself 
looked alternately embarrassed, sulky, and cheerful, 
as the various aspects of his new position struck him 
in turn. Watersmeeting was his, and a very great 
deal more besides, with the provision that he at no 
time contracted any marriage or form of marriage 
with any person who was not eligible for presenta¬ 
tion at Court. Patch had flown at him. 

“Archie, for goodness’ sake tell me. Oh, you 
haven’t been such an awful fool?” 

Archie dabbed his forehead, and found a portion 
of his voice. “Thank God, no,’’ he whispered. 
“But it was a damned near thing.” 

Maurice would gladly have gone away imme¬ 
diately after the funeral, instead of hanging about, 
very well aware that neither of the other two wanted 
him, but he was obliged to superintend the removal 
262 


Monte Felis 


of certain possessions of his mother’s which had re¬ 
mained at Watersmeeting after her death and now 
became his. He still had no very clear idea what 
he would do next. Greyladies was empty now. 
Of the old couple who had leased it: one was dead, 
and the other gone to live with a married daughter. 
He supposed he could put in a few weeks seeing to 
the repairs of the place, and what chance there was 
of doing a little farming. After that he might go 
abroad again. Rachel had talked about Sienna. It 
didn’t matter; wherever he went he would be equally 
lonely. As for this idea of Patch’s that he should 
somehow be jumped into Diplomacy—it was the 
last life he desired. He shrank from trying most 
other employments. After all, he had enough to 
keep himself and a bit over, what right had he to 
take bread out of the mouths of the demobilized 
and the axed? 

From time to time he wondered if Rachel had 
seen his name among the people who were present 
at his father’s funeral. Unless something of the 
sort happened, she would probably think he was on 
his way to India. If she knew he was still in Eng¬ 
land, he tried to think that she might write to his 
club—just to ask what the doctor had said. 

He had written to her, over and over again, sit- 

263 


Monte Felis 


ting up half the night, pouring out his sore heart in 
hot, incoherent sentences, covering page after page, 
which he never reread, and burnt when the morning 
came. It would do no good to make her as miser¬ 
able as he was himself. She might not be happy 
—in his bitterest moods he had never succeeded in 
convincing himself that she was that—but there was 
a chance that she might achieve a sort of quiet if 
he let her alone. 

He was telling himself so one afternoon to the 
tune of Brewster’s hammer as he nailed up a case 
of pictures. They were up in the old nursery, 
which had remained empty since Maurice himself 
had vacated it, and the acid-faced nurse who had 
presided over his early years had been pensioned off. 

He stood by the table, idly fluttering the leaves 
of a pile of books, a few school prizes which he 
had never shown to anybody, because no one seemed 
very much interested, and schoolboy stories which 
he had devoured in secluded parts of the park. The 
very sight of their bright covers brought back the 
smell of bracken and the taste of greengages. 
Patch’s boys should have them, when they came to 
Greyladies. He must try and see more of them in 
future. He would have plenty of time. Good 
Lord. What wouldn’t there be time for? 

264 


Monte Felis 

He began to put the books into an open box, and 
then noticing that their edges were dusty, told 
Brewster to go and get a cloth. 

"Hurry up," he repeated as the man did not 
move. 

Brewster was on his knees by a packing-case, gaz¬ 
ing at one of the torn sheets of newspaper he had 
been stuffing down the sides. He was slowly and 
half audibly reading something to himself. 

"What have you got there?” asked his master. 

"Would this be our Mrs. Cassilis, poor lady, 
sir?" he asked. 

Maurice had the paper out of his hand before he 
finished speaking. 

"What? Where? What about Mrs. Cassilis?” 

"Down there, sir, by your thumb—"Attempted 
Murder and Suicide of a well-known K.C.” 

Maurice found the passage indicated. 

"At Boxmouth yesterday an inquest was held on 
the body of Edward Cassilis, K.C., 45, barrister-at- 
law. Mr. Cassilis, who had recently suffered from 
a serious nervous breakdown was walking back 
from the shore with his wife, when, just as they 
reached the summit of a footbridge crossing the 
railway, he was seen to seize her in his arms, ap¬ 
parently with the intention of jumping with her on 

265 


Monte Felis 


to the track. Mrs. Cassilis fortunately managed to 
save herself by clinging to the railings until assist¬ 
ance reached her, but her husband who was a 
powerfully built man, broke away and threw him¬ 
self in front of the 4.10 express. The engine- 
driver who had seen him fall, at once applied his 
brakes, but could not succeed in stopping the train 
until the engine and first two carriages had passed 
over him. Mrs. Cassilis was removed to the Box- 
mouth Hospital, where she was found to be suffer¬ 
ing from an injured ankle and severe shock. Dr. 
Algernon Cassilis, brother of the deceased gave evi¬ 
dence . . .” 

The rest was a blur to Maurice’s eyes. 

“Narrer escape, that was,” he heard Brewster 
say. “Whatever made 'im do it? Must have 
been . . .” 

“Here you can leave all this and finish it to¬ 
morrow,” his master interrupted. 

“It don’t want more than three-quarters of an 
hour to dinner, sir, so should I come and tell you 
when the dressing-bell goes?” 

But Maurice could only answer by an impatient 
jerk of his head in the direction of the door. 

The hot blood sang in his ears and e'bbed again, 
leaving him so sick and dizzy that he was forced to 
266 


Monte Felis 

sit down. But only for a moment, and he was on his 
feet, tramping up and down the room. So she had 
gone back to her husband? Why? Pressure from 
the Morlands? Force of circumstances? Old 
stirrings of affection? No, no, not that. . . . 
Had she known when she left Monte Felis?—and 
hadn’t told him. “Bad news,” she had said to 
old Whittaker. Could there have been worse? 

The hideous scene rose before him. Rachel’s 
little gloved hands—such absurd little hands— 
frantically clutching at the rail; her white, piteous 
face; the terror in her grey eyes; and that brute, with 
his mad, devil’s face, leaning over her, grinning, 
dragging at her slim waist, her slender arms. . . . 

A cold dampness broke out over his forehead, 
as he sank down on the old sofa, his head in his 
shaking hands. 

But the hound was dead. Dead as a doornail. 
They had had an inquest on him and buried him. 
There was no coming back from that. He would 
never trouble her again. She was free. Nothing 
on earth stood between them. How and where and 
how soon could he find her? 

They had taken her to the hospital, poor darling, 
but he would have her out of that. He could nurse 
her better than they could. . . . The date at the 

267 


Monte Fetis 


top of the paper caught his eye. Good Lord! It 
was three weeks ago. It had happened while he was 
still at Monte Felis. She had been free when he 
got back to London, and he hadn’t known it, perhaps 
might never have known it if Brewster hadn’t got 
hold of that bit of paper. Good God I 

And now ? The next thing was to find her, not to 
lose another instant. He would go to Boxmouth at 
once. But wait, if it had all happened three weeks 
ago the chances were she had left. After some 
effort at concentrated thought he decided to wire 
to the hospital at Boxmouth felling them to reply 
to his club if Mrs. Cassilis was still there, and if 
not, where she had gone. He would find the an¬ 
swer when he got to town and would lose no more 
precious time on false scents. 

By motoring to Carlisle he could catch the Scotch 
express and be in town by half-past seven to-morrow 
morning. 


268 


Chapter XXI 


\ _ 

T here was no reply to his wire when he 
reached the club, which, as the porter in 
shirt sleeves tried to explain to him, was 
not surprising. He was for starting off to Box- 
mouth on the spot—but finally allowed himself to 
be persuaded that by the time he had had breakfast 
some opportunity would have been given the telegram 
of getting itself delivered and answered. It came 
at last and brought the news he had feared. Mrs. 
Cassilis had left a fortnight earlier, address un¬ 
known. There was nothing to be done but to see 
what he could get out of the Morlands. 

At a quarter to five, that afternoon he was stand¬ 
ing in the Gothic porch of Morley Edge. In the 
train coming down hope had revived, it even seemed 
possible that Rachel might be here. His heart beat 
so violently that he thought it would strangle his 
voice when the door was opened. But of this there 
seemed no immediate chance. 

He looked about him, at the red shale paths with 
the faint down of green towards their edges, and at 

269 


Monte Felis 


the neatly clipped shrubs which he knew dissembled 
the kitchen windows. By stepping back a little he 
would be able to see the tennis-court. It was all 
just as Rachel had said. Rain had fallen with silent, 
inevitable persistency since early morning, and on 
the damp air hung a pungent smell of decayed vege¬ 
tation from the kitchen garden. From the little 
tortuous drive came the drip, drip of the lime trees. 

In every window in the house the blinds were 
drawn to exactly the same height. 

“Oh, my poor Rachel,’’ Maurice breathed, laughter 
in his eyes, and then with a gust of impatience: 
“Deuce take them, why can’t they answer the bell?” 

He rang again, this time a peal that clanged 
through the house, and was almost immediately fol¬ 
lowed by the appearance of a flustered parlour-maid. 

Maurice’s arrival had been duly observed by Mrs. 
Morland. On hearing wheels, she had at once be¬ 
taken herself to her usual post of observation be¬ 
hind the morning-room window curtain, in order 
to see if it was a caller who was worth admitting. 
Instead of any of their acquaintances, however, she 
had reported to her youngest daughter, who was 
spending the day with her, that it was a young man 
and a total stranger. He had driven up in the sta¬ 
tion cab which he had then dismissed. 


270 


Monte Felis 

Who on earth could he be? Mrs. Morland was 
lost in conjecture. He looked well, how should 
she say? Londonny, was the best word she could 
think of. 

Enid was comfortably settled in a basket chair, 
knitting a little vest, and had not enough curiosity 
to move; besides he must be in the porch by now 
and out of sight. Suddenly a thought struck her. 

“Could it be that man of Rachel’s ?” 

They stared at each other in excited apprehen¬ 
sion. 

“Stop, Annie,” Enid exclaimed, as the parlour¬ 
maid crossed the hall. Mrs. Morland put her head 
round the door and hissed a muffled command to her 
to “wait a minute.” She returned to Enid. 

A rapid argument followed. Should he be told 
they were out, and thus got rid of without un¬ 
pleasantness, or had they better have him in and 
show him once and for all that he was not likely to 
get anything out of people like they were? Mrs. 
Morland was for the former course, which would 
give them time to get Mr. Morland’s instructions, 
should the man have the temerity to call again. 
But, Enid argued, another day Rachel might be at 
home. Better finish him out of hand. 

Then came the question, should they receive him 

271 


Monte Felis 


in the morning-room as they would have done a 
secondary sort of caller, such as a person coming 
to ask for a subscription, or might he not from sheer 
perversity, see something informal and friendly in 
it ? On the whole it was better for Annie to quickly 
set a match to the drawing-room fire. 

Enid was sorry that she was not wearing her new 
tea-gown. However, she did the best she could 
by putting a rose-coloured cushion behind her 
head, and assuming a haughty expression. Her 
mother chose out the two best flower vases in the 
morning-room and carried them across to the draw¬ 
ing-room mantelpiece. 

The scene was just set, when Maurice’s second 
assault on the bell brought any further preparations 
to an abrupt conclusion. Mrs. Morland took the 
chair opposite Enid’s with the ungraceful rapidity 
of a person playing “musical chairs,” and crossed 
her feet. 

They listened in tense silence to the opening of 
the front door, and a quick firm tread in the hall, 
accompanied by the crackling of Annie’s apron. 

“Captain Bannister,” the maid announced, in a 
voice that was not without emotion. 

If Maurice had been less intent on his own 
affairs, he might have been more sensitive to the at- 
272 


Monte Felis 


mosphere into which he had plunged. The faces 
of both ladies were suffused with a vivid crimson. 
Mrs. Morland’s voice was faint, and she glared at 
him with the dumb hostility of an affronted sheep. 

“How do you do? My daughter, Mrs. -” 

for the moment she had almost forgotten Enid’s 
married name—“er—Willson.” 

She waved him to a small chair. 

“I must apologize for calling,” began Maurice 
fluently. “I hoped that I might find Mrs. Cassilis 
here, or that you could tell me where she is. You 
may remember that she was so very good as to go 
abroad with me last winter ?” 

He paused, but neither of the ladies seemed to 
have anything to say. 

“Perhaps you could give me her address?” 

They continued to stare over his head, getting 
redder and redder. Maurice who was pretty well 
aware that difficulties of the feminine gender 
usually gave him very little trouble, felt his morale 
shaken. 

“I’m afraid she’s been having a rotten time,” he 
suggested lamely, and then was seized with an awful 
terror that there was something so much the matter 
with her that they could not bring themselves to 
speak of it. 


273 



Monte Felis 

Mrs. Morland withdrew her eyes from the pic¬ 
ture rail and fixed them on the fender. 

“My niece had had the very terrible sorrow of 
losing her husband/’ she announced heavily. 

“So I heard. ... It was that that made me think 
I’d look her up”—that was absolutely true, anyhow 
—“How is she?” 

“My niece is not likely to feel equal to meeting 
strangers for some time to come,” Mrs. Morland 
proceeded in the same tone of repressive gloom. “It 
was a most terrible blow to her to lose dear Edward 
so suddenly and so tragically. They were so de¬ 
voted.” 

Maurice seemed temporarily silenced, so she 
droned on: 

“They had been married just ten years, ten happy 
years. I am sure the only sorrow they can have 
had, except that they had no children, was his deli¬ 
cate health; but he was so much better, and they 
were so happy to be together again. You know 
how it all happened? The poor fellow who was 
always so nervous about her, was afraid in some 
way that she was going to fall, and, as we think, 
in trying to save her, over-balanced himself. Un¬ 
fortunately the newspapers got hold of some people 
who didn’t see it properly, and, of course, knew 
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nothing about Edward, and made up some sort of 
tale out of it. No one who knew him could believe 
such a thing for a moment. Could they, Enid?” 

Her inspiration was running dry. Enid took up 
her cue. 

“Oh dear, no. Edward was quite absurd about 
her. He simply gave her everything she wanted. 
It used to amaze us. But then we Morlands spoil 
our husbands, at least mine says so.’ , 

She gave the little laugh she kept for company. 
This Captain Bannister was disconcertingly good- 
looking, and something else too, which was less easy 
to define, but it made it very difficult to be disagree¬ 
able to him. For the first time it struck her how 
badly Tom’s hair was cut, and how short and stubby 
his hands were. The small jealousy of Ra T chel, that 
had always rankled unacknowledged in her heart 
blossomed into a good healthy hatred. Suppose this 
man with his good looks, perfect clothes, and fine 
connections, went and married her? Her parents 
might define their fears as “not wanting to have him 
hanging round her,” but Enid’s were more concrete. 
Men were so funny about Rachel. He had taken 
the trouble to come all the way down to Crampton 
to call on her. At all costs she must be prevented 
from scoring this last point. 


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Monte Felis 

“We don’t see as much of Rachel as we should 
like, or, as we feel would be good for her,” she went 
on, fixing her eyes on her knitting, and speaking in 
a low, serious voice. “She did something we 
couldn’t approve of. Her ideas have never been 
ours. She had a great friendship with a man we 
do not like. It upset poor Edward terribly, though 
I believe he forgave her. But well, you may as well 
know it, she deceived us all and went away with 
him.” 

Mrs. Morland surveyed her younger daughter 
with mingled dismay and admiration. Was this 
the fruit of the long and painfully thought out up¬ 
bringing?—the carefully chosen schools and govern¬ 
esses—that Enid could . . . well, put things like a 
politician? When this horrid man (so different 
from their own friends, who evidently wanted to get 
hold of Rachel for her money) had gone away, she 
would quite gently tell Enid that she thought she 
had gone a little too far, though in a case like this 
one had to say something. 

Their visitor had risen to his feet. He looked 
very tall and very rigid as he stood between them. 
His profile reminded Mrs. Morland of the bronze 
figure holding the lamp in the billiard-room, which 
Mr. Morland had bought at Christie’s. He looked 
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Monte Felis 

less than ever like one of their own friends. She 
couldn’t see his eyes because his head was turned 
towards Enid, who seemed to huddle lower in her 
chair. 

“I’m sorry I troubled you,” he was saying. There 
was a vibration in his voice that was not at all 
pleasant. ‘‘Mrs. Cassilis’ private affairs are, no 
doubt, of interest to her relations. I fear I can’t 
claim any right to an intimate acquaintance with 
them. You cannot give me her address? No? 
Then I am afraid there is nothing for me to do, but 
to again apologize for troubling you. Good-bye.” 

He bowed to each of them in turn, and had reached 
the door -before Mrs. Morland had time to ring the 
bell. 

They waited till the front door slammed before 
they spoke. 

Enid broke the silence. 

“Where’s Rachel this afternoon?” 

“She went to old Lady Foxcroft against my 
wishes and advice, but as it turns out perhaps it was 
a good thing. What a mercy she didn’t come in.” 

A pause. 

“I think I put him off.” Enid’s sullen expres¬ 
sion gradually gave place to a sort of conceited spite. 

Her mother hesitated. 

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Monte Felis 


“Well, dear, of course, it was one of those ex¬ 
treme cases when one has to act for the best. You 
are so very accurate as a rule. ...” 

“It was perfectly true,” Enid interrupted. “Ra¬ 
chel has any amount of notions we don’t like, and 
you told me yourself that Edward was very much 
upset about her going off to Portugal like that. 
There was no need to tell the man I meant himself.” 

Mrs. Morland was struggling in a tangle of con¬ 
flicting emotions. She didn’t think her daughter 
ought to have done it, but she was very glad she 
had done it. 

Neither spoke again till the sound of a train broke 
the stillness, when they turned simultaneously, and 
looked out of the window, whence a railway em¬ 
bankment was visible through a thin fringe of trees. 

“The six o’clock—he’ll have gone by that,” said 
Enid. 

“And Rachel is safe,” echoed her mother, with 
mild drama, breaking into smiles. “Father will be 
in soon. I’m sure he will think we managed un¬ 
commonly well. Perhaps I had better say a word 
to Annie, by the way. I’ll tell her that it was 
somebody connected with poor Edward’s last illness 
(in a way it was), and that it would only upset 
Rachel if she had known he had been here. . . . 
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Monte Felis 

Now I’ve seen him I'm more thankful than ever 
we’ve got rid of him. He’s not at all like our 
friends. I’m sure when I looked at him, I felt 
thankful that Harold and Tom weren’t that kind of 
man.” 

Enid gave an impatient flounce. 

“In my opinion, Rachel ought to have been shut 
up instead of Edward. She is too silly to be left to 
her own devices. When she marries again—and I 
suppose she won’t be happy till she does—I only 
hope she won’t try to hook herself on to the fringe 
of the aristocracy.” 

Mrs. Morland nodded her head up and down. 

“Well, dear, you know father and I have always 
said that no good comes of mixing up with those 
sort of people. They haven’t our ideas of right and 
wrong.” 


279 


Chapter XXII 



AURICE swung down the brief drive 
under the dripping lime trees, angrier 
than he had ever been in his life before. 


He told himself that he had only just got away in 
time; another word, and he would have been telling 
that lumpish cow of a woman exactly what he 
thought of her and her clumsy lies. And the old 
one, too, just as bad. Good God! To think that 
Rachel had lived with them for years on end. Well, 
there should be no more of that. If he could pre¬ 
vent it, she should never see or speak to them again. 
It was just like her to try and make the best of them; 
but now he had seen them for himself, she couldn’t 
dress them up any longer. He remembered with 
astonishment that he had laughed at them through 
her eyes, till he had come to feel quite a kindness 
for them. In his imagination they had shared 
something of the glamour that surrounded every¬ 
thing that belonged to her. They were doubtless 
absurd, limited, too, in ways that might be tire- 
280 




Monte Felis 


some if one had too much of them; but after all there 
must be something rather attractive, rather Cran- 
fordish, in their funny little foibles. Coming down 
in the train he had found it not only possible, but 
amusing, to imagine himself playing golf with Tom 
and Harold. But now this harmonious picture was 
torn to shreds. They were just ordinary hypocrites 
and liars. 

Then, too, they were obviously violently hostile 
to himself. But why? In Heaven’s name, why? 
He thought he had been careful enough to let no 
hint escape him that his desire to see Rachel was 
prompted by anything but placid friendship. They 
might have thought it was “too soon” for anything 
else. As for himself, he thought, without undue 
conceit, that there was nothing to which they could 
reasonably object. 

What might not his poor Rachel have suffered 
from such spite? How was she? Where was she? 
Where had they hidden her? There was nothing 
else for it, repulsive as the idea was, he would have 
to go to a Private Enquiry Agent and have her 
traced. They hadn’t the power to keep her from 
him. Vague notions of the Habeas Corpus Act 
floated about his brain. He would go to a really 
sharp lawyer first thing to-morrow, not that fool 

281 


Monte Felis 


he’d been to before, and see what could be done 
about unlawful detention or whatever it was called. 

He looked at his watch and realized that in the 
first place he had lost his train back to town, and 
that in the second that he hadn’t the faintest idea 
where he was. In his blind fury he had tramped on, 
looking neither to right nor left, and now he found 
himself in a quiet country road leading to nowhere 
in particular, unless it was to a large house standing 
in park-like fields. 

A creaking board, hanging on a tree near the 
gate bore a half obliterated notice that Crampton 
Manor, and four hundred acres of valuable graz¬ 
ing land, were for sale without reserve. 

Maurice read the notice. So this was where he 
had spent those long weeks last year—where he had 
first come to know Rachel. He remembered hear¬ 
ing something about the convalescent home having 
been moved to somewhere near the sea. So it was 

9 

empty now and for sale. That meant he could go 
in. 

Something more than curiosity beckoned him 
through the paintless gate, and up the moss-grown 
drive. 

Soon he came to a sunk fence, bounding the 
gardens, and found himself walking between broken, 
282 


Monte Felis 

ill-trimmed rhododendrons. Another turn and the 
house itself stood before him, grim and grey and 
shabby, with rows of black windows like sightless 
eyes. Wisps of straw and old newspaper, such as 
dog’s furniture on the move, lay about the corners 
of the steps. Now at last, after two hundred years’ 
existence, the old house was dead—hushed and 
silent as the voices and feet that had once filled it 
with sound. Round about it in the dank grass, 
copper beeches and cedars stood like mourners, 
weeping for the life that would never return. 

Maurice looked up at the blank windows and 
wondered which room had been his. He wanted to 
go inside, but the bell had been removed. For some 
time he fruitlessly rattled his stick on the door, 
where the paint was dry and wrinkled like the skin 
of a mummy. There was a faint hollow echo, but 
no answering footsteps. Perhaps round at the back 
he might come across a gardener or someone who 
would let him in. It was absurd, because even if 
he succeeded in gaining an entrance, it would soon 
be too dark to see anything. Nevertheless, he 
wanted to go in. 

He turned away from the door, and looked about 
him. To the right of the house there was a cutting 
in the shrubs, which might be a path leading to the 

283 


Monte Felis 


back regions. He started down it, but found that it 
wound away from, rather than towards, the house. 
It was very overgrown with dripping laburnums 
that dashed soft wet tassels of golden flowers in his 
face. He could only see a couple of yards ahead. 
He knew it was fruitless to pursue the path which 
was obviously taking him in the wrong direction, 
but a faint sense of adventure drew him on. 

Presently he heard someone coming towards him 
—footsteps and the sound of a branch being pushed 
aside, and then springing back. A gardener, per¬ 
haps, who would tell him off for trespassing. Who¬ 
ever it was was walking very slowly ; it almost 
seemed as if they were lame. 

He came suddenly on a little clearing, where the 
path widened to admit a sundial and a stone seat. 
On the further side where it went on again, was a 
big bush of flowering currant, and by it a tall 
woman with a long black veil, whose white face 
shone faintly distinct in the twilight. 

She was peering forward, as if to see who was 
coming towards her. 

Maurice’s heart gave a great bound and then 
seemed to stand quite still. On the woman’s face, 
fear, bewilderment, and then as he held out his 
arms, wild, incredulous joy. 

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Monte Felis 


“Rachel!” 

His voice sounded hoarse in his own ears, but she 
knew it better than his face. 

“You’re coming with me now, Rachel, aren’t 
you?” he whispered after a time. 

“Yes.” 

“To-night, I mean?” 

“Yes.” 

There was no doubt or hesitation in her replies. 
She looked up into his face and smiled. 

“We’ll go to town to-night. I’ll take you to 
Patch’s house, and in the morning we’ll get mar¬ 
ried ; it’ll have to be a registry office, until I can get 
a special licence and go down to Greyladies in the 
afternoon. I’m not going to let you go near those 
brutes again.” 

“Who?” 

“Never mind, I’ll tell you all about it in the train. 
Where’s the nearest station? We’d better not go 
back to Crampton.” 

Rachel tried to think, and presently remembered 
that there was an inn on the road, beyond the wood. 

“They have a horse and trap for hire there. Per¬ 
haps,” she went on dreamily, “we could drive to 
Englebridge and wait for a train.” 

“Come then.” . . . But neither of them moved. 

285 


Monte Felis 


“We’ve got to go,” whispered Maurice in the 
same dreamy tone. A great peace enfolded them, 
one of those hushed hours when time and place lose 
all meaning. The light had faded out of the patch 
of sky above their heads. 

It was Rachel who at last gently released herself. 
She slipped her arm through his, as she had done 
in the days of his blindness. Fortunately, it was 
but a little way that they had to go, for she could 
only walk with difficulty. Once she stumbled, and 
then found herself lifted up, and carried, till the 
lights of a small building came in sight. 

Whispering to her to wait for him, Maurice set 
her down on the bank at the side of the road, and 
presently returned driving a dog-cart. He lifted 
her into it and drove off rapidly down a dark de¬ 
serted road. Once he spoke—to ask her how soon 
she thought she would be missed. 

“Not for ages, I very often don’t come down to 
dinner, and the servants will think I’ve stayed with 
Lady Foxcroft.” 

But Maurice still frowned. Nor did his expres¬ 
sion relax till they were in the train. 

“I shan’t have a quiet mind till we’re through 
that registrar’s hands,” he said. “That woman 
shook my nerve.” 

286 


Monte Felis 

Rachel laughed—the first time for many a day. 
She laughed still more when he described his inter¬ 
view with her relatives. 

“Oh, how like Enid! It must have been Enid, 
Violet’s not so resourceful.” 

“But who on earth was the man she was talking 
about?” he asked after a time. There was a faint 
undercurrent of jealousy in his voice of which he 
was deeply ashamed. Rachel heard it, and after a 
puzzled pause, laughed again. 

“Why you, you goose! You see, I was never 
very explicit in my letters; and then it all came out 
and they were in a dreadful fuss.” 

Comprehension began to dawn on Maurice. 

“That’s why they didn’t seem to take to me then? 
I say you won’t want to have them to stay with us 
very often, will you?” 


THE END 




287 


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